Day 4
The fourth day in NYC was probably the most tourist-heavy day of all. We spent essentially the entire day in Lower Manhattan and the Financial District and definitely spent most of the day on our feet. We took the subway all the way to the Brooklyn Bridge stop and one emerges from the underground literally right where the bridge crosses the river. Kirsten and I took a quick jaunt around the City Hall/Pace University and then took to crossing the bridge. The bridge itself is pretty impressive, having been designed and built in the 1860s and 70s and undergoing only one renovation in the 1950s or 60s. There are some pretty cool plaques as you walk across pedestrian platform showing how the skyline of Lower Manhattan has changed over the years. The most recent one is pre-9/11, so the Towers are still on the newest one, although someone took it upon themselves to try to scratch them out and wrote R.I.P. I wasn't sure if I felt offended or touched. After the bridge, we walked around on Wall Street. I wanted to see it even though there isn't much to see - just buildings and guys in suits walking around. Tourists, of course, aren't actually allowed on the trading floor or even in the buildings, and little black fences surround the entrances. Kirsten said that when she was in New York shortly after 9/11, there were soldiers with semi-automatics all up and down Wall Street. It's nice to know that our priorities are straight...
Some other fun sites in lower Manhattan included the old churches, many of them dating to the early 18th century. Trinity, on Wall street, was a gorgeous building that had a really large courtyard and cemetery. Considering how valuable real estate is down there, it's nice to see the preservation the city has taken care of. Down the street from Trinity is Federal Hall , the spot where George Washington took the oath of office. This sits diagonally across the street from the New York Stock Exchange. Space is much tighter down here than in the other neighborhoods of the island. St. Paul's, which stands directly across from the WTC site, was especially moving. Not only was it where George Washington stopped to pray following his inauguration, but it has a special history now tied with 9/11. The building isn't much further than a football field away from where the towers fell, yet not only only was the building unharmed, not a single window was broken on the that day. The only damage was to a large tree in the courtyard that feel.
It's remnants now sit in front of the church's entrance. We also took a trip down to Battery Park, where we saw a really great pillar depicting some of the most celebrated historical irony in existence. In 1626, Dutchman Peter Minuit purchased Manhattan island from the Caranasee Indians (who did not even live on the island - that would be the Weckquaesgeeks) for sixty guilders worth of trading goods. Following this, we took the ferry across to Staten island, where you can get the best look at the Statue of Liberty. I decided it wasn't necessary to actually go to Ellis Island or Liberty Island, so Kirsten and I contented ourselves with the ferry and we stayed on the back deck to watch as it went by and to get some good views of the downtown skyline. It took less than an hour.
We also met some really cool people on this day. Jonathan's roommate Mina hosts couch-surfers fairly regularly and we had two extra roommates, Dominik and Tanja, from Germany. Dominik plays guitar for a couple of bands, mostly of the hardcore variety, and and Tanja is a journalism graduate student at Memphis University with a background in American history and culture. So, it was fun as someone with a background in European history to share knowledge. I feel like we each taught something to the other about their own homelands.
Some other fun sites in lower Manhattan included the old churches, many of them dating to the early 18th century. Trinity, on Wall street, was a gorgeous building that had a really large courtyard and cemetery. Considering how valuable real estate is down there, it's nice to see the preservation the city has taken care of. Down the street from Trinity is Federal Hall , the spot where George Washington took the oath of office. This sits diagonally across the street from the New York Stock Exchange. Space is much tighter down here than in the other neighborhoods of the island. St. Paul's, which stands directly across from the WTC site, was especially moving. Not only was it where George Washington stopped to pray following his inauguration, but it has a special history now tied with 9/11. The building isn't much further than a football field away from where the towers fell, yet not only only was the building unharmed, not a single window was broken on the that day. The only damage was to a large tree in the courtyard that feel.
It's remnants now sit in front of the church's entrance. We also took a trip down to Battery Park, where we saw a really great pillar depicting some of the most celebrated historical irony in existence. In 1626, Dutchman Peter Minuit purchased Manhattan island from the Caranasee Indians (who did not even live on the island - that would be the Weckquaesgeeks) for sixty guilders worth of trading goods. Following this, we took the ferry across to Staten island, where you can get the best look at the Statue of Liberty. I decided it wasn't necessary to actually go to Ellis Island or Liberty Island, so Kirsten and I contented ourselves with the ferry and we stayed on the back deck to watch as it went by and to get some good views of the downtown skyline. It took less than an hour.
We also met some really cool people on this day. Jonathan's roommate Mina hosts couch-surfers fairly regularly and we had two extra roommates, Dominik and Tanja, from Germany. Dominik plays guitar for a couple of bands, mostly of the hardcore variety, and and Tanja is a journalism graduate student at Memphis University with a background in American history and culture. So, it was fun as someone with a background in European history to share knowledge. I feel like we each taught something to the other about their own homelands.
Day 5
Friday was the most packed day of all. We got out fairly early and we spent nearly the entirety of the day at the Natur
al History Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ugly Betty finally left and we got to go the fourth floor to see the prehistoric fossil collection. It's extremely well-organized to give a chronological evolutionary history of all life on earth. Four large rooms circle the center of the floor, beginning with the "vertebrate origins" sections followed by the Saurischian dinosaurs, Ornithischian dinosaurs, and then Cenozoic Era creatures that are also extinct. Seeing the biggest skeletons of the apatosaurs, triceratops, and tyrannosaurs were impressive, but one of the most impressive things for me was the archaeopteryx fossil. It is certainly one of the most famous and most scrutinized transition fossils - indeed any fossil - of all time, and seeing it in person was a real treat. I wasn't even aware that it was in the Natural History Museum and here it was tucked away in an out of the way nook of the Ornithischian sections. Very cool. We spent a few hours here and then headed for the last major museum on our New York visit, the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
This was the biggest of all of the museums we visited while in Manhattan. We saw all of the MoMA and nearly all of the Natural History Museum, but after nearly 5 hours at the Met, we had seen far less than half of what it had to offer. We spent a fair amount of tim
e especially in the Greco-Roman collection, which has an especially impressive array of Hellenistic sculpture and pottery as well as transitional artifacts from the Late Empire. You can almost see the decline of paganism, the rise of Christianity, and the brief flourishing of the mystery religions in the artwork. The Early Modern sculpture was pretty wonderful too, and the hall of sculptures was probably the most impressive single room in all of the museum. The centerpiece was Antonio Canova's Perseus with the head of gorgon Medusa, quite an impressive structure. My favorite, though, was probably the sculpture of Ugolino and his sons, by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux. Anyone who has attended IU, Bloomington, has probably seen a replica of this sculpture in the student union at the entrance to the Whittenberger Auditorium. In 13th century Pisa, amidst a riot due to rising food prices, Ugolino, a local noble, inadvertently killed the nephew of the archbishop. He was imprisoned, along with other rioters, for treason on charges of inciting and leading the riot, and the unforgiving archbishop literally threw away the key and left the prisoners to starve. According to Dante, who had written about Ugolino in the Divine Comedy, his sons, inconsolable about his inevitable demise, offered their own bodies for him to eat, but Ugolino refused, and died. The museum also house a thorough display of pre-modern arms and armaments, from both Europe and Asia, though as a medievalist, I was a little disappointed that most of the armor was from post-1550. It was still extremely interesting, especially the detail to be found in the helmets, sword hilts, and gauntlets. We also spent considerable time in the European
paintings section, and this was some of the oldest art we saw on our trip since the MoMA only had paintings dating back to 1800. There were some interesting things in there, including the portrait of Benjamin Franklin upon which the hundred dollar bill is based, as well as several impressive oils by Carvaggio, Raphael, and Holbein. Much like the lack of Kahlos in the MoMA, however, I was a bit disappointed that only a few Holbeins were represented. He's also one of my favorites, and there were but a few. I honestly don't know that much about art, and there were very few paintings in the gallery that I recognized, but it was all very impressive nonetheless. We would have hit the ancient Egyptian and the Asian sections as well, but our dogs were barking (howling, really), and we left after a few hours. Another good reason to come back again... We ended the night at a college bar in the NYU are watching the UofL-Syracuse Big East championship. We were decidedly outnumbered by Syracuse fans but that added to the fun.
al History Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ugly Betty finally left and we got to go the fourth floor to see the prehistoric fossil collection. It's extremely well-organized to give a chronological evolutionary history of all life on earth. Four large rooms circle the center of the floor, beginning with the "vertebrate origins" sections followed by the Saurischian dinosaurs, Ornithischian dinosaurs, and then Cenozoic Era creatures that are also extinct. Seeing the biggest skeletons of the apatosaurs, triceratops, and tyrannosaurs were impressive, but one of the most impressive things for me was the archaeopteryx fossil. It is certainly one of the most famous and most scrutinized transition fossils - indeed any fossil - of all time, and seeing it in person was a real treat. I wasn't even aware that it was in the Natural History Museum and here it was tucked away in an out of the way nook of the Ornithischian sections. Very cool. We spent a few hours here and then headed for the last major museum on our New York visit, the Metropolitan Museum of Art.This was the biggest of all of the museums we visited while in Manhattan. We saw all of the MoMA and nearly all of the Natural History Museum, but after nearly 5 hours at the Met, we had seen far less than half of what it had to offer. We spent a fair amount of tim
e especially in the Greco-Roman collection, which has an especially impressive array of Hellenistic sculpture and pottery as well as transitional artifacts from the Late Empire. You can almost see the decline of paganism, the rise of Christianity, and the brief flourishing of the mystery religions in the artwork. The Early Modern sculpture was pretty wonderful too, and the hall of sculptures was probably the most impressive single room in all of the museum. The centerpiece was Antonio Canova's Perseus with the head of gorgon Medusa, quite an impressive structure. My favorite, though, was probably the sculpture of Ugolino and his sons, by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux. Anyone who has attended IU, Bloomington, has probably seen a replica of this sculpture in the student union at the entrance to the Whittenberger Auditorium. In 13th century Pisa, amidst a riot due to rising food prices, Ugolino, a local noble, inadvertently killed the nephew of the archbishop. He was imprisoned, along with other rioters, for treason on charges of inciting and leading the riot, and the unforgiving archbishop literally threw away the key and left the prisoners to starve. According to Dante, who had written about Ugolino in the Divine Comedy, his sons, inconsolable about his inevitable demise, offered their own bodies for him to eat, but Ugolino refused, and died. The museum also house a thorough display of pre-modern arms and armaments, from both Europe and Asia, though as a medievalist, I was a little disappointed that most of the armor was from post-1550. It was still extremely interesting, especially the detail to be found in the helmets, sword hilts, and gauntlets. We also spent considerable time in the European
paintings section, and this was some of the oldest art we saw on our trip since the MoMA only had paintings dating back to 1800. There were some interesting things in there, including the portrait of Benjamin Franklin upon which the hundred dollar bill is based, as well as several impressive oils by Carvaggio, Raphael, and Holbein. Much like the lack of Kahlos in the MoMA, however, I was a bit disappointed that only a few Holbeins were represented. He's also one of my favorites, and there were but a few. I honestly don't know that much about art, and there were very few paintings in the gallery that I recognized, but it was all very impressive nonetheless. We would have hit the ancient Egyptian and the Asian sections as well, but our dogs were barking (howling, really), and we left after a few hours. Another good reason to come back again... We ended the night at a college bar in the NYU are watching the UofL-Syracuse Big East championship. We were decidedly outnumbered by Syracuse fans but that added to the fun.Day 6
Considering that we walked probably twelve or thirteen miles over the previous five days, we tried to take it a bit easier on our last day. Since it was Saturday, Jonathan actually got to spend the day with us instead of just the evening. We started at the farmers' market in Union Square Park and got some delicious organic chocolate milk, but not much else. Not too much is in season in New York this time of year, but there were a ton of apples and some nice looking greens were starting to come in, but we didn't get anything else. It was extraordinarily crowded, and we didn't spend too much time there. The park is just a few blocks from The Strand, so we went back there for some more browsing. I actually bought something this time after some agonizing minutes of indecision amidst seventeen miles of books. I ended up going with some cheap new copies of a few books that have been on my "to read" list for a while: Marcus Aurelius' second century Stoic manifesto Meditations, Procopius' scandalous and unflattering portrayal of the Byzantine emperor and empress Justinian and Theodora The Secret History, and one of the many Joseph and Frances Gies' works on medieval history, Women in the Middle Ages. I've already read most of Meditations and a fair amount of The Secret History. We ate dinner at a live food restaurant, Caravan of Dream, which serves vegetarian cuisine and specializes in "live food", or food that is uncooked, unprocessed, and organic. It was fresh and delicious. I had a hummus platter and salad with flax seed chips and guacamole, and Kirsten, Jonathan, and I shared a bottle of Kosher wine from Israel. Usually, my biggest problem with vegetarian food is that I get hungry again an hour or two after I eat it, but this left me full for the rest of the day. We finished the day off watching basketball at Jonathan's apartment. It was another lazy, loungy day. We left the next morning, saddened to leave, but proud of ourselves for packing about two weeks of activities into six days time.
Final Impressions
In a sense, New York didn't really surprise me much. I've spent a fair amount of time in Chicago, and even though New York is several times bigger, they are fairly comparable. The big difference, as Jonathan pointed out, is that Chicago is a metropolis but it's also distinctly a Midwestern city, and I'd agree with that. New York doesn't have a typically Northeastern feel; it is, in fact, a truly international city. I've spent plenty of time on college campuses and heard a multitude of foreign languages, but I heard far more in New York (especially French and German - apparently, Western Europeans love New York). New York has a neighborhood for nearly every ethnicity and every nation. It is a multicultural wonderland, and representative of what's best about America. It's also, unfortunately, an exemplar of the problem of poverty in the most advanced nation on earth. An exhibit at the MoMA showed a map of where the prison population in New York comes from as well as where those under the poverty level live (nearly 70%). It's hard to walk through New York and not see a homeless person on nearly every street corner. But it's not just those on the street. Project housing has created what Jonathan called "concentrated poverty" which, while providing a cheaper place to live for the city's many poor residents, has not really solved the problem. However, overall, the city is quite nice, especially when it come to this things in which I am most interested: history, culture, art, science. It was fantastic, and with the many great schools in the area, I will surely keep it in mind when I'm applying to PhD programs in two years. In short, it seems like not just a wonderful place to visit but a wonderful place to live. But I don't think I'd want to make a life there. Jonathan called the city oppressive and I believe it.
No comments:
Post a Comment