“Teens Take The Met!” is an annual free event in which teens from all over the city, ages 13 and up, gather at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to perform, do crafts and discover new programs and organizations. This year the event was held on May 12, and it was packed. 

There were many live musical performances, including the Susan E. Wagner High School Marching Band and the All-City High School Chorus. And according to junior Adrian Geroy, who also attended the event, Jogan Ganzon, who attended QSI from middle school through freshman year and then transferred to Flushing High School, performed with their jazz band from Trinity Church.

In addition to enjoying the musical performances, teens were able to do crafts like customizing their own tote bags with textiles, markers and ribbons and making their own impressions on paper using rubbing plates and a crayon. The tote bag exhibit was one of the most popular ones.

Another popular exhibit was about urban planning, where participants were able to cut out pages from magazines and place them on cardboard boxes to simulate cities and urban life. While at the start of the evening the boxes were bare and bland, by the end of the night they were covered top to bottom with clippings.

The rest of the exhibits in the open room had a constant flow of people signing up for newsletters, taking free swag and socializing. My personal favorite was an exhibit where you got to sew your own leaflet from a string of thread, looseleaf and card stock.

The crowd started to thin out at around 7 p.m., with many moving on from the designated hall for teens to the general museum. I tapped out at about 7:30 p.m., feeling happy that I chose to go there and pleased with all the arts and crafts I made, as well as all the organizations that I learned about.

The experience was really fun and I would recommend “Teens Take The Met!” to anyone interested in the arts in any form.