New York State's official museum sits at the south end of Empire State Plaza and is free to enter — one of Albany's significant assets. The collection is broad: natural history exhibits include a mastodon skeleton and dioramas of the state's different ecosystems; cultural history galleries cover Native American cultures, the Dutch colonial period, immigration waves, and industrial history.
The 9/11 section is unexpectedly moving for a state museum — the fire truck from Ladder Company 3 dominates a large gallery, its cab crushed flat by falling debris, surrounded by recovered artefacts and personal accounts. A recreation of a Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy) longhouse is a detailed, informative installation on the people who shaped this region long before European contact.
The museum building itself is part of the Empire State Plaza complex — the curved tower at the southern end of the plaza. Allow two to three hours.