New York, part II

My stay in New York is reaching its end and out of these three weeks that I spent there, here are my thoughts.

As for Manhattan itself, I found it quite windy and that there was a smell of food everywhere thanks to the little stands present in the street selling hotdogs and Co. The weather is really fluctuant and reminds of England. Indeed, it could be very hot and then very cold on the next day. The Tube stations are not always very well designed (i.e. 86st street/Lexington station) because one must go outside in the street in order to reach the other platform, something I did not find very intuitive. In contrast, the possibility to take either an express metro or a metro going to more local stations is a smart idea. I enjoyed a lot walking in Manhattan and all sort of sculptures present in the city. It also boasts some nice places to take a drink sometimes and other mini gardens are present which makes it easier to eat a sandwich in the shade. The geometrical disposition of the town makes it easy to navigate in unlike the European cities but on the other hand, it makes it less charming as a result in my opinion. I went to the top of the Rockefeller Centre at night time; the vista on the 60th+ level on NY is enchanting.

Having lived in Harlem for most of my stay, I had some apprehension with violence and security but finally, I never had to deal with any of these troubles; that said, I do not think that I would live there eternally and I felt a bit out of place as being one of the few white person in suit walking around these streets. Being an area populated mostly by the black community, most of the streets and avenue are renamed with a famous black person; as an example, I was living close to Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd and Malcolm X Avenue. For some reasons, a lot of churches are present. They are not always in a proper church building and can be found in classic buildings. I guess that faith is an important part of the culture of the people residing there. I heard of some masses being packed and that booking was necessary in order to join. Nevertheless, I did not have enough time on my hands to assist to some Gospel choirs. I have also noticed that a lot of crippled people wander in the area either with a single crutch or in a wheelchair. I have absolutely no idea why it is like there and not in the other part of the city I have been in. Apart from the campus of Columbia University which is nearby and the Morningside Park that offers a view toward Central Park, I do not think that there is a lot to see there.

On Sunday, I went to Battery Park again: the heart of Manhattan and its historical area. With its narrow streets and its tall skyscraper, lower Manhattan gives the feeling of being overwhelmed; in addition, as it is the oldest part of NY, the streets do not all benefit from the grid system. These narrow and curvy streets add to this feeling. It also proposes some nice photo opportunities thanks to the perspectives offered by the buildings. The famous Wall Street is also around as is the bronze Merrill Lynch’s bull [ERRATA: the bull symbolize the rising trend of the stock auction as opposed to the bear which symbolize the fading trend, Wall Street traders are strong believers in the bull] ; interestingly enough the parts that have been the more touched are golden and are its head and genitals...classy...From there it is possible to look at Brooklyn and the Queens and their bridges on the East River.

I then proceeded to go to Staten Island from the Lower Manhattan ferry station. The urban architecture doesn’t look like Manhattan or any big city. Actually, it looks like something miles away from the very urban downtown but it makes a good change from time to time to switch to a more suburban environment. However, it looks as if it was stuck in the eighties and I found it a slightly depressing side as not much seemed to happen there. South beach provides a good walk thanks to the wooden boardwalk. It felt a bit surreal to walk there as I was less than an hour away from downtown. To access it, a ferry at Battery Park is available and it is free, it also allows having a stunning view on the statue of the Liberty, Ellis Island and the skyline of Manhattan. My trip was very very windy but it was an excellent opportunity to take pictures. The metro card works also on the island and let people take advantage of the bus network.

 The Upper East Side is a posh area of New York, with all the hype and prestigious shops notably on Madison Avenue and close to the museum mile (including notably the Metropolitan Museum, the Guggenheim, the Frick Collection and the Whitney museum of American Art). It remains a nice area where to wander although the nearby Central Park is a much better option. I went to the Whitney Museum  which the museum for the American Art. It hosted its biennal and a tons of different artists on 5 levels. What marked me the most was this series of picture by Nina Berman about this horribly mutilated 24 years old Marine going back from Iraq and getting married. His would-be wife on the pictures did not seem that joyful which is understandable. It concluded that in the USA the military culture and its consequences were seen as acceptable. The rest of the works exhibited was not really worth it as there was not anything that holding some esthetical value to my eyes.

I also went to the famed MOMA, museum of contemporary art of New York, which current exhibition was on the South African artist William Kentridge, depicting pieces of art denouncing the Apartheid and the cruelty of mankind; it was obviously rather depressing and dark. The MOMA boasts a nice collection of contemporary classic including some Warhol, Lichtenstein, Klein and other figures of the post-war and contemporary period. A gallery dedicated to the history of mundane items design is there and it is interesting to observe that some form of art can be found in these objects. A garden allows people to chill out in the shades of the skyscrapers and offer another example of the NY urban feeling.

Walking toward Central Park can be found the Frick Collection.   This impressive collection of paintings and works from European old masters and renaissance era are nestled in an equally impressive building. Constituted at by Henry Clay Frick , an industrial tycoon from Pittsburgh, who desired to turn his New York residence into a museum after his death. The house was conceived from the start to host art works as the windowed ceiling in the main gallery can show. In addition, the house which is built according to the standard of the nineteenth century possesses an internal garden with a fountain that was added after the death of the magnate, it is however covered up by a windowed ceiling. It is relatively small compared to the other museums around but its collection does not have to blush of its size. It is perhaps why the Frick is one of my favourite museum in New York.

On the other side of the 5th Avenue lies Central Park. It is a little paradise for the joggers and they literally proliferate on the week end. It is also one of the few big green spaces available in New York, let alone Manhattan. It offers some magnificent view on the skyline of New York from the northern side of the city. It features some big water plan like the Jackie Onassis Reservoir, which could be a potential place to sail, and the Harlem See where people can fish. The Conservatory Garden let people relax amongst its plants and hedges. It is possible to play different sports in different parts of the park and to bike/skate on its road during the week end as the later are closed to the cars. I believe that it is an excellent place to relax on a Saturday afternoon, on the other hand, it will not be a very quiet place given the amount of people going there.

With the end of my article is also the end of my stay in the Big Apple and I wish I could stayed longer to explore more of it and its nightlife. I find it very different from the other cities I have been to, notably the European cities and even if less charming, more urban than its older sisters, New York remains a fantastic city to go and live in for anyone enjoying the buzz of a major city. Overall, what ticked me the most was that posh places could be found next to some miserable ones downtown and the state of the streets which could use some renovations.I will be then off soon to Boston and Washington DC..

-C

New York

After a long flight I arrived in New York shattered. Indeed, while crossing the Atlantic with United Airlines was expected to be long, the connection between Washington DC and New York was nearly as lengthy. After hearing American people complaining about the poor quality of the French service, I found that a bit rich! Anyway, after a long trip a bed was all I wanted and I had it so I will not complain too much. It also gave me the opportunity to observe the American people in the airports lobbies and I could not resist but wonder why a huge majority of these respectable American ladies had short hair and were not really feminine as if past 40 they were told to look as unattractive as possible, odd...

The Guggenheim Museum was my first stop in the city and it harboured the Haunted exhibition. It represented a series of pictures representing the past and symbolising melancholy and a haunting feeling due to the past. According to the website, the explanation is that “much of contemporary photography and video seems haunted by the past, by ghostly apparitions that are reanimated in reproductive media, as well as in live performance and the virtual world. By using dated, passé, or quasi-extinct stylistic devices, subject matter, and technologies, this art embodies a melancholic longing for an otherwise irrecuperable past.” This painting somehow touched me more than then rest, probably because it represent a mysterious landscape and that I also like the way the colours are applied. Several exhibitions were present along this one but only the Thannhauser Collection retained my attention. It gathers a collection of classic modern painters including most of the Impressionists yet remains brief, a feat appreciated by your servitor.

I then turned my look on the nearby Metropolitan museum of Arts: a comprehensive museum, rather a supermuseum, which regroups a vast array of artefacts from different civilisations in its permanent exhibitions. Someone could say that it is a clone of the Louvres, however its location and different collection makes it unique and nearly on par with the biggest museum in the world (it felt good to write that!) but makes it probably second to none bar this exception. It possesses galleries about various prime civilisations such as the Oceanic people with a nice collection of mask and the classic antique Greek, Roman and Egyptian galleries which boasts the impressive temple of Dendur from 15 B.C. in one of its room which also offer a view on Central Park. Its collection of classical paintings is also remarkable thanks to the actions of generous donators. It includes most of the Impressionists painters, the Flemish Masters such as Vermeer, the Spanish with Goya, a few English painting of notably Turner and Constable and of course the Italian painters from the Renaissance to later.
On a sidenote, I was happily enthusiast with Arkhip Kuindzhi's Red Sunset on the Dnieper which featured a vivid view over the taiga. Obviously it is only a part of the collections presented by the museum and it is to note that some reconstitution of parlour of various period and style are also present notably in the American Wing. Some American painters, notably Frederick Church through his Heart of the Andes, were talented landscapists.

As for the temporary exhibitions, I decided to avoid the Picasso exhibition because there are simply too many of them around the world and they get boring and mainly because his various styles do not inspire me. Instead, I went to see the art of illumination, which is under represented. It was about the Belles Heures of Jean de France, duc de Berry; not to be confused with the later work and masterpiece Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry. These illuminations represented “a book of hours—a prayer book made for private use in the intimate devotion to the Virgin Mary that grew popular toward the end of the Middle Ages. In addition, it also includes seven “picture book” cycles that tell stories through a succession of full-page illuminations, with text limited to a few lines in alternating red and blue ink. These sections, which were added by the Limbourg brothers in the later stages of the manuscript’s production, show the artists’ increasingly developed power. The brief texts included on the pages are not devotional, like the texts in a typical book of hours, but rather relate stories from the lives of the saints.” Magnifying glasses were available in order to admire these rare objects and the presentation was quite good; in addition the exhibition was not too long which is always a plus in my book.

After being in museums for so many hours, I decided to walk and ventured quickly through Grand Central Terminal and its vast hall with an astronomical painting on its ceiling. I opted to walk toward Battery Park at the bottom of Manhattan and went to see the site of the 9/11 attacks and the remains of the World Trade Centre filled with cranes and other construction and public works installations, Ground Zero, bound to be replaced by a tower recalling the event, the Statue of the Liberty and Castle Clinton and went back via Broadway.

At Madison square, I noticed the Event Horizon (thanks to luck and observation, as it is not indicated.I thought that I saw most of the statues, six foot two cast iron sculptures, but I obviously missed most of them as I counted six of them instead of the fifteenish as shown of this map...) These sculptures of person are supposed to make people aware of how to deal with the conception of cities and growing urban population. Instead, some people thought they were real person about to commit suicide!


I continued my journey in Manhattan and came across the Flatiron building and last but not least: the famed Time Square which was awfully overcrowded and reminded me of the busy sidewalk of the boulevard Haussman near the Printemps and Galleries Lafayette and Oxford Circus in London, some places that are best to avoid, as a result I quickly looked at the giant boards.

Overall, I walked for around 25km and feel humbled by the sheer size of the Big Apple. At first, I thought that Paris was bigger but then I remembered that it was only Manhattan and not the whole city. On the other hand, I wonder if the other parts of New York are that interesting but I would feel too disappointed as there are always some parts of a city which are less appealing.

-C