What's here
MoMA's permanent collection focuses on art from the 1880s to the present — Impressionism through Postwar through contemporary, with design, film, and photography as well as painting and sculpture. Van Gogh's The Starry Night, Monet's Water Lilies, Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, and Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans are all here. These are not the most interesting things in the collection, but they're the ones visitors come specifically to see, and the museum presents them knowing that.
The layout
The permanent collection occupies floors 2 through 5; temporary exhibitions typically take floor 1 and 2. Start at the top (5th floor, early 20th century) and work down chronologically — this gives you the narrative of how modern art developed, rather than encountering Warhol before Cézanne.
Free Friday evenings
UNIQLO Free Friday Nights: MoMA is free from 5:30–9pm every Friday. This is genuine free entry, not a discounted rate. It is also, predictably, busy — particularly between 5:30 and 7pm. Going late in the window (after 7:30pm) gives a noticeably less crowded experience.
The design collection
MoMA's design collection — objects selected for their aesthetic and functional significance, from a Volkswagen Beetle to an early iPhone to a particular red-and-white helicopter — is one of the most compelling things in the museum and frequently overlooked by visitors focused on the paintings. It's on the 3rd floor.
Practical things
MoMA is on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues in Midtown — walkable from Rockefeller Center or the Fifth Avenue shopping corridor. The in-house restaurant (The Modern, on the ground floor) is one of the best museum restaurants in the city and worth booking separately from the museum visit.