Mmuseumm

You are approaching one of the most unconventional exhibition spaces in the city. Mmuseumm is housed entirely within a former freight elevator shaft located in the industrial passage of Cortlandt Alley. Spanning just over thirty-five square feet, it functions as a modern natural history museum that collects the discarded, overlooked, and everyday objects of contemporary life. The project was founded in 2012 by filmmaker Alex Kalman and brothers Josh and Benny Safdie. They discovered the space when their landlord decided to convert the elevator into art studios and offered them the small, ground-floor shaft. Rather than treating it as a storage room, they saw an opportunity to curate what they call object journalism. This practice frames mundane items like toothpaste tubes, food receipts, or even discarded shoes with the same careful, scholarly attention usually reserved for ancient artifacts. By displaying these mass-produced items as evidence of the current human condition, the museum invites you to look at the detritus of modern existence with a fresh sense of curiosity.