After greeting our hosts (Ralph and Micky) on waking and catching up on family matters over a late breakfast, we had a great visit to the Guggenheim Museum, to see an excellent Kandinsky exhibition. Kandinsky is central to the permanent collection of the Museum, as Solomon Guggenheim started collecting Kandinsky's works in 1929 and they were the core of the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, established by Guggenheim and an artist colleague in 1939. This year is the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, which is housed in the (truly) iconic building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. The stunning building is probably better known internationally than most of the artists' works exhibited in it!
Inside the Guggenhein museum
On to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a monumental institution somewhat akin to a combination of London's National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery and the V&A. Naturally, a single visit can only cover a minute part of the Museum, so we confined ourselves to a couple of excellent special exhibitions - American Stories (paintings of ordinary life from late 17th century to early 20th) and Robert Frank's photographs which he published as "The Americans" - then swept, indecently quickly, through the permanent exhibitions of 19th-20th century European and US painters/sculptors, with their extraordinary collections.
Around all of this, we are trying to keep up, along with most NY residents, with progress in the 7-game baseball series between the New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Angels, which is taking place over about 10 days. As we know as much about baseball as most Americans know about cricket, this is not easy. Curiously, the games are often played very late into the night - the one tonight finished at about 1.30am. Surely,this is taking the 24/7 culture too far!
Sun 18th Oct
Late breakfast/brunch (partly because of the late-finishing baseball) with US Jewish specialties (lox, whitefish salad, cream cheese and bagels). In the afternoon, we went to a one-woman show - Carrie Fisher (look her up), which was very funny, but also quite sad in reflecting how celebrity destroys families and mucks up kids. This is not the sort of thing we would usually attend, but it was a memorable experience, as much for the enthusiasm and antics of the audience as for Ms Fisher!
Mon 19th Oct
To MoMA - the Museum of Modern Art - which has undergone a major expansion and rearrangement and, sadly, now has less impact than when we were last there (a view apparently shared by many New Yorkers). Nevertheless, it is still a great museum to visit. One of the special exhibitions was of the work of Ron Arad, a London-based Israeli designer.
Chair by Ron Arad
In the late afternoon we took the free ferry to Staten Island, along with as many other tourists as commuters.
There's not much to see or do on Staten Island, but we spent a pleasant hour in a local bar, watching another Yankees vs Angels game(this time in LA), before returning to NYC as night fell. The illuminated New York skyline is a stunning sight and the ferry is an interesting and very valuable part of the NY transit system, as well as an ideal way for tourists to see New York from the water. After an excellent Chinese meal with Ralph and Micky, we crossed 7th Avenue to the Vanguard jazz club for a great session by the resident jazz orchestra. Near the end of the show we were joined by Carolyn's first-cousin- once-removed, Seth, who is putting cats among the pigeons of the education systems of New York and Rhode Island by setting up highly successful "Charter schools". It was wonderful to see him again, albeit very briefly - we last encountered him as a very streetwise 10 year-old, who confidently guided us around New York.
Tuesday 20th Oct
We may be spending 3 months on this trip, but we're over a third of the way through it and this is our last full day in The Big Apple! As usual, there's never enough time to achieve what we want to do. On a lengthy trip like this, we also have to find time to do laundry, make bookings and pay bills online, deal with emails, edit and annotate photos, and update the blog!
It's not our first time in New York, but it still thrills with its vibrancy, complexity, multi-ethnicity and contradictions. Some things have clearly changed since we were last here over 20 years ago, apart from the huge hole where the Twin Towers stood previously. The cars on the streets are now so much more like those in Europe. The big American models have largely disappeared, except as police cars and taxis, and as older models in the poorer areas. Possibly this is partly a result of the "cash for clunkers" programme. In fact, some European-type cars are now appearing in the taxi fleet and even the police are adopting more modest vehicles!
Much of the hustling which was evident at our previous visit, particularly outside train stations and other public places where tourists are prevalent, has diminished. The city seems to be more controlled, and more sedate, than it was. Is this due just to a concerted effort to crack down on hustling, or partly to the subduing effects of increased security arrangements, the economic slowdown and a growing realisation that the USA isn't the overwhelming military and economic power that it was previously?
Some things haven't changed. New Yorkers of all ages are mostly still very polite and helpful, though we encountered an all-time low in a local supermarket, where the young woman at the till continued to eat her nectarine and virtually ignored us, while putting our few items through the checkout! Gum-chewing remains a popular habit. American TV continues to be even worse (much worse) than that in the UK. The Subway trains and stations, though evidently effective and efficient, remain significantly more gloomy and poorly signed than the London Underground. Directions for onward progress would be reasonably clear and helpful, if only we could work out where we are at the time! By contrast, Grand Central Station continues to impress as a magnificently elegant model for an efficient major rail terminus.
During our previous visit, we stayed on Manhatten, which was ideal for access to the essential tourist sights. This time we are in Queens, which fitted nicely with our intention to see some of New York outside the central business and arts districts. On our final day in the city, after visiting Ground Zero, we walked across the highly feted Brooklyn Bridge which, in our opinion, was interesting, but not particularly attractive.
In this part of Brooklyn, a hispanic element was evident, though not as much as in the Bronx, which required a long subway journey. A lengthy, but interesting walk to the Botanical Gardens revealed the impact of the predominantly hispanic and black residents in the area.
The Botanical Gardens are extraordinarily attractive and restful, with a diverse layout of lawns, formal borders and informal woods. The late 19th century Haupt Conservatory is large, elegant and beautiful. The signage in the gardens is generally both informative and restrained, but does occasionally raise some interesting questions.
The weather has suddenly warmed up - up to 20 deg C today and sunny. Back to wearing t-shirts!
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