Museums put out welcome mat

AS leaves and rain fall, winds whip and temperatures plunge, museums from San Francisco to New York provide sanctuary for weather-weary tourists. That makes October a popular time for exhibit openings.

Some notable newcomers:

San Francisco: The De Young Museum, known for its vast collection of Western Hemisphere art, is to reopen Saturday in a $202-million building in Golden Gate Park. The museum’s former home was seriously damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

The new three-story structure, which sports a copper facade, includes a 144-foot tower with an observation deck; a store with one of the area’s most comprehensive art-book collections; a sculpture garden; and a cafe.

The museum’s opening exhibit, through Feb. 5, will be “Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh.”

For information: (415) 863-3330, www.deyoungmuseum.org.

Portland, Ore.: “Animation,” an exhibit spread over 6,000 square feet, is as diverse as the antique penny arcades and present-day “Powerpuff Girls.” Besides viewing cartoons, visitors can add their voices to soundtracks, draw characters, layer cels to create animated scenes and more.

The exhibit at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, 1945 S.E. Water Ave., runs through February. (503) 797-4000, www.omsi.edu.

Bartlesville, Okla.: A rare skyscraper by Frank Lloyd Wright, the Price Tower, at 510 Dewey Ave. in this town 40 miles north of Tulsa, will be 50 years old next year. Originally an office-apartment complex, it now houses a hotel and an arts center.

To celebrate, the arts center starting Friday will display more than 100 drawings, models and photos relating to the 221-foot-tall tower, plus furnishings such as desks, chairs and textiles that Wright designed for it. (918) 336-4949, www.pricetower.org.

Detroit: More than 100 sculptures by French master Auguste Rodin and Camille Claudel, his mistress and muse, plus photos and letters, are on display through Feb. 5 at the Detroit Institute of Arts, 5200 Woodward Ave., the only U.S. venue for the exhibit. (313) 833-7900, www.dia.org.

New York: “Slavery in New York,” at 9,000 square feet, is the largest exhibit ever mounted by the New-York Historical Society.

Through video reenactments, bills of sale for the slave trade, personal letters and diaries that trace the life of a Sierra Leone girl kidnapped into slavery, the show delves into the city’s little-known role in slave trading.

Through Oct. 16, the society, at 170 Central Park W., will display Abraham Lincoln’s hand-written draft of the 1862 Emancipation Proclamation. The rest of the exhibit runs through March 5. (212) 873-3400, www.nyhistory.org.

Washington, D.C.: Cloak-and-dagger goes glitz in “Spy Treasures of Hollywood: Highlights From the Danny Biederman Spy-Fi Collection,” at the International Spy Museum, 800 F St. N.W.

Here you’ll find Agent 86’s shoe phone from the “Get Smart” TV series; Emma Peel’s leather pants and John Steed’s bowler hat from the series “The Avengers”; and secret agent Austin Powers’ eyeglasses.

The exhibit is to run through spring; a specific date hasn’t been set. (866) 779-6873, www.spymuseum.org.