Museum Mile

We hosted the sweetest of all couchsurfers this week- a sharp Austrian graduate student with the most capable head on her shoulders, a genuine disposition, and loads of fun. We got to know one another over fish and chips and ciders at my favorite pub, The Beekman. And spent a nice breakfast the next day chatting about career choices/options, directions and decisions to take and make in life, dreams and desires and goals. And we made plans for an exciting evening escapade.

Our afternoon plans didn't coincide: Patricia wanted to do a little shopping (I politely declined, and she laughingly conceded that she hated shopping just about as much as I do!) and I had my heart set on a museum.

I had two museums on my list, both within Museum Mile along the east side of Central Park. There was no particular exhibit I was set on seeing- in fact I wasn't sure what was showing in either location. As I approached the Whitney, I knew something was afoot there. Sure enough, I entered the very crowded lobby and tapped a museum attentant on the arm. He told me a new exhibit was opening- today for members, and tomorrow for the general public. Only the fifth floor was open at that moment for nonmembers. Well, that wasn't going to feed my craving. :)

I checked my watch, and realized I still had enough time to spend in a gallery up the street. So off I went to the Museum of the City of New York. Unfortunately I wasted about 20 minutes since I jumped on the local 6 train, going the wrong way. Doh! Traveled back down to Grand Central, crossed the platform and took the uptown 6 several stops to 103rd Street in Spanish Harlem.

It was just a few (very interesting, culturally) blocks to the museum at Fifth Avenue. The main entrance was closed for construction, so I ducked down 104th Street to the temporary side entrance. There a grouchy attendant sold me an admission ticket, and took my coat back to the coatroom. Poor thing- she didn't seem too happy.

So what to see here?? There were a couple photography exhibits, and a painter who did top-down scenes of Manhattan at night. I figured all these had merit, but since I wasn't wedded to any of them in my mind, I just started wandering......

Checked out Rudy Burckhardt's photos of street scenes in NYC from the late 30s through the 90s. He tended to focus directly on the street itself, catching snatches of legs and feet and shadows from the passersby above the camera's "eye level". The write-up about him indicated he had hobnobbed with some notable artist-contemporaries. But I wasn't that impressed with his work frankly. Maybe I am being unfair, since this presumably is only a portion of his photos, with its limited subject matter selected just for this one exhibit. I couldn't help but think he had a good idea and just exhausted it- nothing fresh came into his photos over a period of almost 60 years- he just came back to the subject in the same way over and over again. Disappointing.

His partner in art, and in life, was the aforementioned painter of NYC at night. I was much more impressed with Yvonne Jacquette's work. Her canvases were visually stunning, and I had a special affinity for her subject- many of her "shots" were views from the top of the World Trade Center and took in lower Manhattan from every angle, with her own clever "interpretations" of the scenes she saw below her. Though I know less about painting than I do photography, and can't really judge her methods or techniques at all, I was taken with her art.

It was too bad the heavy construction noise echoed throughout the galleries at this end of the museum. I started to get a dull headache then........

Feeling some pressure to wrap things up, I ducked into the "period rooms", and as usual drooled over the exquisite inlaid woodwork and beautiful silversmithing of bygone eras. Sigh.

I thought I might pick up a little souvenir for our couchsurfer, to remember NYC (and us!) by. But nothing except art books grabbed me at all- and I reasoned that these would be unwelcomed encumbrances for her, as she was traveling to Boston by bus this coming weekend.

Just then my cell phone rang and I picked up, knowing Dan would most likely be tracking me down to coordinate our plans for the evening. No sooner had we gotten past our short pleasantries, but the previously idle guard slid off his stool in this nearly empty museum, and asked me mid-sentence to turn off my cell phone. HUH? I'm in the middle of a (quite innocent) conversation, dude. Don't you have something else to do, I thought- like maybe watching to be sure someone doesn't tamper with the actual art in the exhibit spaces (I had wondered to myself earlier that there were few guards in the side galleries the whole time I was there)?

OK, it was a petty thing. But that guy seriously got under my skin. Irritated, I put him off, making sure to continue and end my conversation at my own pace. And when I did hang up I promptly reprimanded him and the museum in general for not posting a sign asking for visitors to please turn off their cell phones in the museum.

Chagrined, he mumbled something about the new rules since 9/11 and how the sign had been misplaced during the renovation process. Again, huh? Only city buildings were subject to these new rules, apparently. Nice, I thought- a bit paranoid since, no offence, but I couldn't imagine this museum being a prime target for terrorist activity. What I felt it did subject the public to was bureaucratic BS, and provided a disincentive to visit the museum at all. I mean, who wants to "get in trouble" by city employees with crappy attitudes? They should be falling all over themselves to encourage visitors (and admission fees) to come through its doors. Made me glad I wasn't a NYC taxpayer.......

Good thing I had to go. I made a beeline downstairs, took my coat from the surly coatroom clerk and hit the street, dialing up Dan to apologize for our previous unexpected interruption.

I was hot under the collar, and felt a rant coming on.....nothing that couldn't be quenched by a cold pint and a sympathetic ear, I figured.

Plus, we had dinner plans in the East Village that night. How bad could life be?? :)