31. Ashton Park

Home to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Margaret Ashton Museum of Modern Art and the Park Gate Photography Annex of the MMA, Ashton Park is a terminally hip neighborhood that’s always at the height of some artistic movement’s renaissance or another’s. Ashton Park is equally as renowned for its celebrity-owned condominiums as its art collections, and a local joke chides celebrities for buying in-town homes here but never actually spending a night in the city. On the more sordid side, a designer amphetamine has taken the neighborhood by storm, and many on the local A-list are rapidly developing addictions to this new, started-up version of speed.

Background

Ashton Park was once the homestead of the Ashton family, who bestowed it upon the city in the late 19th century. Since then, it’s been a very tony part of town, nestled between the performing arts district and Little Paris. Except for the larger structures, which are always devoted to the big galleries, the buildings in the neighborhood are constantly shifting hands and being developed and redeveloped as loft space or gallery space, depending on who holds the deed for any given decade.

Alternative Name(s)

Gallery Circuit

Type

District

Location under

New Castle