To your left is the Rubin Museum of Art - a museum of Himalayan and Tibetan art.  This museum is the largest institution in the United States concerned with the art of Tibet and the Himalayas and its influences on the art of Mongolia, India and Eastern Asia.  The basis of the museum collection was the private collection of works of art of Tibet and the Himalayas of Donald Rubin.  He began to collect these works of art together with his wife, Shelley, beginning in 1974. The first piece obtained for the collection was the tanka - the white tare.  A tanka is a picture on religious themes painted with adhesive paints onto cloth.  On these can be seen fanged gods, skins of elephants, necklaces from shells and much more.  In 1998 the Rubins acquired the building of the bankrupt Barney's Department store to house the collection and museum.   The building was completely rebuilt for the museum.  Only the original spiral staircase was preserved.Today in the museum stores there are 2,000 exhibits: sculpture, textiles, paintings, ritual object, manuscripts, graphic papers and other things.Photo NZA_0714 by Edward Blake is licensed under CC BY 2.0