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New York City, July 2017: Museums!

August 14, 2017

Last month, Jennifer Gariepy and I took the Greyhound bus from Detroit to New York City. It’s always a long haul, but the return trip was nicer than the trip out. Among other things, a belligerent drunk got kicked off of the bus (“I want my charger! Who took my charger!”)

The New York Public Library

On Monday, July 17, we started with the Main branch of the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue, the Steven A. Swarzman Building. It’s good to check your travel-bags for a while and to walk around, lighter. We spent a good while there. It’s a lovely building. There were displays on Love in Venice, Italy, and on old airline maps. There was also a collection of vintage Winnie the Pooh dolls. These were the actual stuffed toys owned by A.A. Milne’s son, Christopher Robin. After that, we walked around, ending up on 14th Street, then caught the subway to Brooklyn.

On Tuesday, July 18, we tried to find my grandfather’s old place on Baltic Street in Brooklyn. It had been torn down to build a school. On the internet, it looked as if it was still there. Go see for yourself.

Then we got by the New York Transit Museum. It’s in the same neighborhood. It was pretty wonderful. I’ll have to get by there again someday. We were only there about half-hour and they closed for the day. It’s built in an out-of-service subway station. There are old subway cars on the tracks. You can go inside of them. They also had vintage subway signs, ads and even a toll booth, as you can see. After that, we got back to Manhattan. We wandered around, did this and that, and ended up at Canal Street. We finished the day going through Chinatown and Little Italy.

At the New York Transit Museum

On Wednesday, July 19, we were mainly around the Chelsea and Meatpacking District areas. A lot of galleries have moved there but we just got to one, to see a good exhibit of work by Ray Johnson. He’s an interesting artist who was born and raised in Detroit.

Then we went to the new Whitney Museum of American Art building. It was the first time I’ve been there. There have open-air viewing decks where you can catch some breezes and see the city. Highlights included shows of work by Alexander Calder and Brazilian artist Hélio Oiticica. In the evening, we went and saw the band Les Sans Culottes play at the Footlight in the Ridgewood neighborhood in Queens. They played second as part of a program with 4 bands.

At the Whitney Museum of American Art

Jennifer at the Whitney Museum of American Art

A Calder stabile at the Whitney Museum of American Art

On Thursday, July 20, we went to the Brooklyn museum we saw Infinite Blue, an exhibit related to the color blue. Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party has been on display at this museum since 2007, so we saw that. There was also an excellent exhibit, We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965–85. This show is strongly related to two exhibits currently on display here in Detroit, Say It Loud: Art, History, Rebellion at the Wright Museum and Art of Rebellion: Black Art of the Civil Rights Movement at the DIA.

Then, we got to the Museum of Modern Art where we saw Making Space, Women Artists and Postwar Abstraction. We were only there an hour or so, but we saw a lot. The permanent collection is amazing. We also breezed through the Robert Rauschenberg show. The slurping mud pit and the robots were a surprise. It included his work as a stage set designer, in collaboration with theatre and dance performances. There were also films and posters related to New York City in the 1910’s. It rained awhile, and the streets were shiny until it evaporated. Speaking of the weather, it was a hot time in old New York. Most days were in the mid to high 90’s.

The Brooklyn Museum

July 20, around 9pm

On Friday, July 21 we went to the Museum of the City of New York. There were good exhibits on salsa music in New York, protest and the 1980’s AIDS crisis. To me, the most amazing show here was A City Seen: Todd Webb’s Postwar New York, 1945-1960. I loved it.

We got to Central Park a bit, including the Conservatory Gardens, at around 105th street. Then we got to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We saw a lot of the permanent collection and the Irving Penn retrospective. We didn’t see as much as we wished because we had to catch the Greyhound back to Detroit. After missing a year last year, it was good to be back.

It was nice to go around town with Jennifer. Thanks too to New York friends, especially Bill Carney and Margie Catov. It was great!