Drawing Sessions: The Walk-In Ateliers of New York

An accomplished figurative artist friend came to visit this week, and it was quickly decided that we should spend a night drawing from life. While she has taught life drawing for many years and shown her work in solo exhibits, I'm am occasional sketch artist, coming late to drawing but with huge enthusiasm. Tuesday night's session of "Jazz & Sketch" at the Society of Illustrators (link below) perfectly fit our needs - a beautiful setting in the society's home on E. 63rd., one with a rich artistic and social history, the exquisite additions of live jazz and a cash bar, excellent models, and a congenial atmosphere. I can't wait to go back.

Several individuals, societies, and studios in New York host walk-in ateliers, sessions of three or so hours with an emphasis on figure drawing with live models. While many follow the traditional format of short poses followed by increasingly longer poses, some sessions emphasize one or the other. Drawing, like exercise, usually involves a kind of warming up - in this case, getting to know the model's individuality as well as loosening up the hand and getting to know proportions. As anyone knows who has attended these sessions, the work can be challenging and intense. Even when the sessions are accompanied by nice people, drinks, and live jazz, the actual process of translating what one sees with the eye to lines on the paper can feel like a workout. Life drawing sessions are not a walk in the park but they can be immensely rewarding.

For art-minded visitors to New York, I highly recommend supplementing gallery and museum visits with a drawing session at one of these studios. Each possesses its own culture, traditions and atmosphere, most often a reflection of its founders, history, and neighborhood within the big city. For art travelers, attending a drawing session is one of the best ways to get inside the life of the city. These walk-in ateliers require no advance planning or reservations, except where noted, but you'll need to bring your own materials.

Like anything, instruction and years of practice make a difference in competency levels. Like life, many people in the room display high levels of talent while others hope to meet those levels one day. After all, many of us move to New York to test our competence by playing with those who are at the top of their game. It's like learning to play tennis with someone who is better at it. But the baseline, so to speak, is the relief and joy of finding yourself in the same room with people who love art so much that they know it's not a game. It's life.

Spring Studio
64 Spring Street (Soho) (212) 226-7240
The busiest of the life drawing studios, founded by Minerva Durham in 1992. Sessions every day, and six evenings a week. $15 per session (as of Sept. 2009). For those starting or getting back into drawing, take Minerva's introductory classes, "Learning to Draw the Figure."

Society of Illustrators
Sketch Night: Jazz & Sketch, Tuesdays & Thursdays, 6:30-9:30 p.m. Admission $15, $7 Students with ID.
128 East 63rd Street (between Park and Lexington Avenues)

Salmagundi Art Club
walk in art classes
212-255-7740
5 weekly classes
Monday sketch class live model 7 to 10 p.m. $7 without instruction/ $11 with instruction.

Wednesday night long poses 6:30-10:20 p.m. $10 without instruction/15 with instruction

Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School
every other Saturday, from 4-7 p.m.
The Slipper Room on the Lower East Side.
167 Orchard St @ the corner of Stanton
$10 in advance. $12 at the door. Most fun!

National Arts Club
Drawing Class
Every Monday night, 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.with Mark Milroy
Contact: thestudio@markmilroy.com
Live model drawing for artists of all levels. Bring your own materials. $10 per person.

Chelsea Sketch Group
136 West 24th Street
Director: David Klass
One long pose $8.00/session
Wed. 7-10. at 10 p.m.
A small group meets every Wednesday. Male and female models alternate week from week.

The Project of Living Artists
30 Bushwick Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
Established 1969 by Joseph Catuccio
Model Sessions: Saturdays - Year-round 10:30 am to 2:30 pm
718-388-6708 for more information.

Also read the 2006 NYT article, "Life Lessons: A Beginner’s Guide to Walk-In Art Classes" August 18, 2006.

* See also The Educated Artist: A Guide to Continuing Education Classes and Workshops in the Fine Arts in New York City, Fall 2009 and The Art Supply Walk from 2007 on WOTBA

Images of short poses by Walking Off the Big Apple. May 26, 2009

Welcome to Times Square. Please Have a Seat.

From Summer 2009

This morning the crews put out lawn chairs for visitors to Times Square to sit back and enjoy themselves for this Memorial Day. On one block were these colorful chairs, the kind most associate with the backyard picnic, and on another were lounge chairs, the kind you adjust to lie back, catch some sunshine and look up at the sky. Normally I avoid this pocket of urban insanity, but beginning with this weekend, the famous sections of Broadway through Times Square and another from Herald Square to Duffy Square have been turned into a pedestrian mall. Today at any rate, the street became the city's big neighborhood block party. As I have been writing for nearly two years about the pleasures of seeing the city on foot, I looked forward to this day. It was a great morning, clear skies and perfect temperature, to walk the two miles from Greenwich Village up to Times Square, and it was great, once there, to find so many places to finally sit down and rest.

Read more about the street closure in the article from the New York Times,"No Vehicles, but Plenty of People on Broadway."

Image of Times Square, May 25, 2009, by Walking Off the Big Apple. More on Flickr WOTBA. See an earlier entry on Times Square from April 2008.

Into the Memorial Day Weekend

The time has come to start the summer, and a hot day today in New York serves as a sneak preview for coming attractions. Walking Off the Big Apple is taking the long Memorial Day weekend to see museum exhibitions, explore new vistas, and to map out exciting summer adventures. See you soon.

Opening Day at Washington Square Park: Thoughts and Images While Strolling

Around 8 a.m. on May 19, 2009, park workers started pulling down the chain fences surrounding the newly renovated sections of Washington Square Park, including its signature fountain, and early risers in the Village streamed in. Several were out on morning walks with their dogs. I happened to be there, too, killing time before my dog's vet appointment, and quite stunned when I saw neighbors stroll past the fountain. Many looked like convalescents taking their first steps in a garden they only half remember. As my dog and I joined them, curious to explore new paths, shady places, expansive paths, and new plantings, I felt like I was walking into a long boarded up room. I think we were in shock. Whatever I thought about the park's new design quickly became sublimated by the pleasures of just walking through the park again. The northwest section and the fountain area had been closed a year and a half, a time that has felt like forever.



I still have thoughts and opinions about the new design. Throughout the pitched design battles, I took a wait-and-see posture, willing to give the newly configured park a chance. I was never part of the school that the park redesign was unnecessary, searching to justify the status quo through invocations of Dylan. On the other hand, I liked the idea of the fountain remaining where it was and off-kilter, not for the sake of disliking symmetry, but more for the symbolism of entering the Village and its winding streets. Self-styled bohemian traditions of the Village do not conform to an imposed order from the outside, and in that sense, I embraced my neighbors' righteous protests. Some of their good ideas made their way into the new design. I still looked for a fresh face for the park that would instill a source of neighborhood pride.

During the time this part of the park was closed for renovations, neighbors huddled under the trees in the eastern section, and trees provided a lot of privacy. So it was a shock to walk into the open fountain plaza, as it feels so public and so far from private. As the day went on and more people arrived with cameras, the sense of looking and being looked at grew more acute. The park's formal design elements, especially the promenade leading west from the fountain to the west, looks late 19th century, the heyday of the strolling flâneur, and these elements enforce the notion of the public space as public spectacle. I felt under dressed.

Escaping the gaze of the public, it's easy to find the gently curving path that flows along the north section of the park from the Arch west to MacDougal St. Shade plants such as hostas and foam flowers look lovely in the plantings in this area, and with the hotter weather approaching, this section will be most welcome. But there's also a shade too much contrivance about this area, I think, largely due to the new evergreen trees, and the design shows too much of its hand. Yet, I'm attracted to the leafy green and may find myself here most often. The passive lawns look attractive, too, for resting, but I'll need to leave the dogs at home.

The fountain is glorious. Running from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. each day, the water features look stunning, and though I had doubts about its new alignment with the Arch, the more interesting alignment of the fountain, it turns out, is with a new exposure to the west. With the plaza raised to a higher grade, it's possible now to see all the way up Washington Place to Sheridan Square and vice versa. Getting off the 1 train at night, you can see the glow of the fountain and the arch in the distance. Glamorous yes, and it feels like home.

Images of Washington Square Park, May 19, 2009, by Walking Off the Big Apple.

WOTBA New York Events Calendar: Howdy, Sailor! Edition Monday, May 18 - Monday, May 25, 2009

Hard to believe that next Monday, May 25, is Memorial Day. On Wednesday, Fleet Week begins and with it a multitude of events to welcome service members to New York. See the link for Fleet Week below for more information.

• Monday, May 18. American Ballet Theater Opening Night and Gala. 6:30 p.m. The Metropolitan Opera, Lincoln Center. Standing room tickets ($30) available today by phone and at the box office. The First Lady, Michelle Obama, will be in attendance.

• Tuesday, May 19. Joey Ramone's Birthday Party. 8 p.m. Fillmore New York at Irving Plaza. 17 Irving Place. Tickets: $25, $30.

• Tuesday, May 19. Allen Toussaint's The Bright Mississippi Band at the Village Vanguard, 178 7th Avenue South, through May 24.

• Tuesday, May 19. The New American Wing opens at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

* Wednesday, May 20. FLEET WEEK May 20-26, 2009 Parade of Ships 10:30 a.m. See schedule of events at the Intrepid Museum website.

Also related: South Pacific, a revival of the 1949 musical, is still playing at the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center. The exhibit, Treasures of a President: FDR and the Sea, is on view at the South Street Seaport Museum. (museum website)

• Wednesday, May 20. Francis Bacon: A Centenary Retrospective opens at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. For a comprehensive list of summer art openings, see this recent post on WOTBA.

• Wednesday, May 20. A new exhibit titled Négritude opens at Exit Art. 475 Tenth Ave. From the press release: "an experimental multi-disciplinary exhibition at Exit Art, explores the visionary 20th century political and artistic movement of the same name — coined by the Martinican poet, playwright, and politician Aimé Césaire in the 1930s — which flourished among Black intellectuals in post-World War I Paris and later spread to Africa, the United States and the Caribbean." Opening: Wednesday May 20, 7-10pm. Through July 25, 2009.

• Thursday, May 21. Hector Del Curto and Eternal Tango Orchestra. 6:00–9:00 pm. (6:00–7:00 pm DJ Set & Lesson; 7:00–9:00 pm Live Music). WFC Winter Garden.

• Thursday, May 21. ANAGLYPH TOM (TOM WITH PUFFY CHEEKS), a film by Ken Jacobs. 2008, 118 minutes, video, 3D. Anthology Film Archives. NY Theatrical Premiere Run. Ken Jacobs will be present for a Q&A after the 6:45 pm show Thurs May 21.

• Friday, May 22. Night at the Museum. Flashlight adventure tours of the American Museum of Natural History. 5:45 p.m. - 9 a.m. Cost: $129 per person, includes snacks, light breakfast, IMAX film and more (Members: $119 per person)The catch is that you have to be between the ages of 8 and 12.

• Saturday, May 23. Steve McQueen Festival (May 20-26) at Film Society Lincoln Center screens Love With a Proper Stranger at 6:30 p.m. Following is a Q&A w/ Neile McQueen Toffel. 1963 film with on location shots in New York.

• Sunday, May 24. The Bangles. 8 p.m. B.B. Kings Blues Club, 237 W. 42nd St. Tickets: $28

• Monday, May 25. Memorial Day.

Image: Sailors on leave on Bleecker Street during Fleet Week, 2008, by Walking Off the Big Apple.

Weekend Trifecta: A Park, A Bike, and A Dance

For those of us who frequent Washington Square Park, the first phase of the park's redesign, a subject of heated argument, looks like it's drawing to a close. The newly-designed northwest quadrant, along with the massive moving and reconfiguration of the central fountain, will open once again to the public this coming week. It's been long in the making, and though the park looks more formal and polished than it has in years, I would like to give the park a chance to prove itself. As the workers test the fountain, set in the remaining pieces of granite, and pick up the stray newspapers that have blown over the fences, the anticipation has become acute. I'll be delirious to explore the park again. My guess is that some of the apparent formality of the park will diminish rapidly. As soon as the visitors stake out favorite places on the new benches, sprawl out on the newly seeded lawns, or when my dogs find something interesting under a well-planted hosta, the park will have to cope with less-than-perfect creatures of all sorts.



NYC is celebrating Bike Month in May. After looking at the many new bike paths the city has been installing along the streets and fantasizing about breezing along the waterfront on two wheels, I bought my first bicycle in thirty years. I plan to ride it as soon as I overcome my fear. I have no plans at this time for a companion site, Cycling Off the Big Apple, as I think the helmet makes me look less than perfect.



While shopping for a bicycle on Saturday, I became distracted by dance. In Chelsea, I passed by the Joyce Theater on 8th Avenue, a venue favored for dance, and a little later I walked by the Dance Theater Workshop on West 19th St. Since I have plans to attend the gala opening of the American Ballet Theater (ABT) at Lincoln Center on Monday, I thought a dance walk might be a good idea. And then quite serendipitously, I turned the corner on Broadway only to bump into the annual Dance Parade. Group after group celebrating world dance traditions glided and spun down Broadway and down University Place and then east to Tompkins Park - belly dancers, Mexican folklorico, cajun, square, contra, ballet, alternative movement, jazz-inspired, African, and many more varieties. All made the spectators smile. While watching the parade on University Place, I saw many workers abandon their positions in nearby restaurants to come to the street and shout and cheer on their favorites. (See more Dance Parade images like this one on Flickr WOTBA).



On Sunday, I accompanied friends to Bay Ridge in Brooklyn to watch the Norwegian-American Parade. Apparently, parades are plentiful in New York at this time of year. While we were walking to the subway at Union Square we caught some of the Veggie Pride Parade.

Images by Walking Off the Big Apple.

New York Museum Exhibitions, Summer 2009: A List, with Openings in June, July and August

Some people plan trips to New York based on the appeal of blockbuster museum exhibitions, especially the ones that gather work under the same roof for a brief amount of time and that will not likely occur again in one's lifetime. That's a good reason. The less-passionate may find in the publicity surrounding a major exhibition a convenient excuse to visit the city, trafficking in the status of seeing the exhibition once back home. That's OK, too. Whatever works. Looking back over my life, now roughly the same age as Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim Museum, the site for a major review of the famed architect, I can easily summon memories of museum exhibitions that have expanded my vision of the world. Among them I count an Edward Hooper exhibit organized by the Whitney, Mexico: Splendors of Thirty Centuries from 1991 (at the Met, but I saw it in San Antonio), a Renoir exhibition in Paris' Grand Palais, Pompeii A.D. 79 at the Dallas Museum of Art, a Whitney Biennial in the early 1980s I saw with my mother, and an exhibition of Robert Motherwell prints in Austin. I could go on about memorable exhibitions from the past. But, I also count life-changing some that I've seen in New York over the last two years, including Seurat's drawings at MoMA and Jasper Johns' Gray at the Met. The summer exhibition schedule in New York promises many more opportunities for inspiration.

What follows is a list of selected (meaning, not all) summer museum and other art center exhibitions opening in New York City in June, July, and August of 2009, along with continuing exhibitions that open in late May. I have starred * my recommendations.

NEW! Click here for a preview of Fall 2009 exhibitions.


American Folk Art Museum, 45 W. 53rd St.

The Treasure of Ulysses Davis
Through September 6, 2009

Kaleidoscope Quilts: The Art of Paula Nadelstern
Through September 13, 2009

Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, New York:

Reflections on the Electric Mirror: New Feminist Video
Through January 10, 2010
Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, 4th Floor

* Yinka Shonibare MBE
Through September 20, 2009

Frick Museum, 1 East 70th Street:

* Portraits, Pastels, Prints: Whistler in the Frick Collection
Through August 23, 2009

Guggenheim Museum, 1071 Fifth Avenue (at 89th St.):

* Frank Lloyd Wright: From Within Outward
Through August 23, 2009
A blockbuster for sure! With lines going around and around and around.

International Center of Photography, 1133 Avenue of the Americas at 43rd Street:

* Avedon Fashion: Photographs, 1944–2000
Through September 6, 2009

David Seidner: Paris Fashions 1945
Through September 6, 2009

John Wood: Quiet Protest
Through September 6, 2009
Part of the larger NYU Grey Gallery retrospective.

Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum, 3237 Vernon Blvd., Long Island City:

Noguchi ReINstalled
Through October 24, 2010

Jewish Museum, 1109 Fifth Avenue at 92nd Street:

They Called Me Mayer July: Painted Memories of a Jewish Childhood in Poland Before the Holocaust
Through October 1, 2009

MAD (The Museum of Art and Design), 2 Columbus Circle:

Klaus Moje: Painting with Glass
Through September 20, 2009

Object Factory: The Art of Industrial Ceramics
Through September 13, 2009

Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue:

Roxy Paine on the Roof: Maelstrom
Through October 25, 2009 (weather permitting)
The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden
One of the happiest days in the New York year is the day the roof garden opens at the Met.

* The New American Wing
now open. See related WOTBA post.

Napoleon III and Paris
Through September 7, 2009
See related WOTBA post.

* Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul
Through September 20, 2009

MoMA (The Museum of Modern Art), 11 West 53 Street:

Stage Pictures: Drawing for Performance
Through August 24, 2009

* James Ensor
Through September 21, 2009 WOTBA Review

In & Out of Amsterdam: Travels in Conceptual Art, 1960–1976
Through October 5, 2009

Morgan Library & Museum, 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street:

New at the Morgan: Acquisitions Since 2004
Through October 18, 2009

Pages of Gold: Medieval Illuminations from the Morgan
Through September 13, 2009

Museum of the City of New York, 1220 Fifth Avenue:

* Amsterdam/New Amsterdam
The Worlds of Henry Hudson
Through September 27, 2009

* Mannahatta/Manhattan: A Natural History of New York City (See WOTBA Review)
Through October 13, 2009

* Dutch Seen: New York Rediscovered
Through September 13, 2009

National Academy Museum, 1083 Fifth Avenue:

Reconfiguring the Body in American Art, 1820–2009
Through November 15, 2009

Neue Galerie, 1048 Fifth Avenue:

Focus: Oskar Kokoschka
Through October 5, 2009

The New Museum of Contemporary Art, 235 Bowery:

Intersections Intersected: The Photography of David Goldblatt
Through October 11, 2009

Emory Douglas: Black Panther
Through October 18, 2009

New York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West:

Hudson River Birds: In Celebration of the Quadricentennial of Henry Hudson's Voyage
Through October 11, 2009

The Studio Museum in Harlem, 144 West 125th Street, New York, New York:

Hurvin Anderson: Peter's Series
Through October 25, 2009

Whitney Museum of American Art, 945 Madison Avenue At 75th Street:

* Claes Oldenburg: Early Sculpture, Drawings, and Happenings Films
Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen: The Music Room
Through September 6, 2009

Photoconceptualism, 1966-1973
Through September 20, 2009

Dan Graham: Beyond
Opened June 25, 2009

* Highly recommended. Images by Walking Off the Big Apple: top, view from roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; middle, Guggenheim Museum, bottom, New Museum of Contemporary Art.

Visiting New York on a Monday and want to know which of these museums are open? Link to post here.

After Walking, A Place to Sit: Greenacre Park, E. 51st

Strolling may be the best way to see New York, but after shopping, walking, or other forms of exertion, it feels great to sit down. Sometimes, while out and about the city, it's absolutely necessary to find a quiet spot to take a time out, make a phone call, or just stare into space. One such place while in the East 50s is Greenacre Park, a beautiful oasis tucked into the north side of E. 51st St. between 2nd and 3rd Avenues. These types of pocket parks in the city, some privately owned public spaces, sometimes function well, but others do not. Greenacre Park, with a 25-foot waterfall, a stand to buy snacks, comfortable movable chairs, and a zen-like design, provides one of the most successful types of spaces in our urban fabric.

From Spring 2009

Built in 1971 by the Greenacre Foundation and designed by Hideo Sasaki and Harmon Goldstone, Greenacre Park was meant to provide a sense of serenity within the city. When I visited yesterday, waiting for a friend who was checking into The Pod Hotel across the street, I spent a few welcome minutes in the park, mostly just sitting and looking at the falling water. About twenty-five to thirty people were there, some sitting alone and others in groups, and while a few were speaking, the sound of the sizable waterfall, the focal point for the park, blanketed the space in an all-embracing hush. The flowers - hydrangeas, azaleas, and peace lilies, among others, provided soothing colors for the eyes. There's not any sort of illusion that one has left the city - the backdrop for the park consists of the nearby Midtown buildings, many of them tall, but the park provides enough of its own interest, largely through additional water features and the cascading ivy, to feel like a momentary escape. I'll be eager to explore more of this area of Midtown and Turtle Bay, because now I know a great place to sit down.

Image by Walking Off the Big Apple. May 12, 2009.

See also the related post, Shhh, Don't Tell: Quiet Modernist Escapes in Midtown Manhattan.

Revisiting Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party in the Age of The Da Vinci Code

The Dinner Party, a multimedia work created by Judy Chicago and many volunteers between 1974-1979 and now permanently housed, or perhaps the word is enshrined, inside The Brooklyn Museum, is essential viewing for fans of art. The monumental installation, a triangular dining arrangement with place settings for thirty-nine honored women guests (among them, Amazon, Sappho, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Mary Wollstonecraft, Georgia O'Keeffe) embodies the values of women-centered artwork such as collaboration, the elevation of "craft," and the restored honor of women who have been left out of the history books. More than a million people saw The Dinner Party when the worked toured the country and subsequently the world, but it's good to have the party in Brooklyn.

Those familiar with the work through reproductions or slides in art history class (and congratulations for finding such a teacher) but haven't seen The Dinner Party in person may very well be surprised by its power. The textures of the ceramic plates, banners, embroidered places settings, etc., are all of a high quality, and the scale of the piece, a grand banquet that still provides intimacy for each guest, can only be fully appreciated in person. The "core" imagery, those vaginal, flowery centers that are individuated on each plate, represent the commonalities of the female experience, and visiting The Dinner Party feels like entering a high holy place of feminism. The dining room is housed within the museum in something like a core, with preparatory panels explaining its importance. I won't even show you a picture, because it may take away from your personal discovery.

While The Dinner Party possesses a definite aura in its new museum home, with dramatic lowered lighting, hushed atmosphere, and a museum guard, I found it was hard for me to look at this female imagery now without comparing it to the time I first saw images of the work years ago. During the 1970s the research and celebration of the lives of women artists, writers, and influential historical figures took on a missionary zeal, and the discussion of essentialism, a notion that women possessed characteristics fundamentally different from men, seemed fresh and exciting, although wildly controversial even among feminists. Many women artists of the next generation took on different projects and with a new set of values, including those who exploited stereotypical female imagery without articulating the consciousness-raising professed by Chicago and other women artists associated with West Coast feminism of the 1970s.

I almost hesitate to bring this up, because it feels like sacrilege, but in its new place and time, The Dinner Party invites a comparison to the themes of the middle brow blockbuster, The Da Vinci Code. Those who have read Dan Brown's 2003 page-turner know that it's about the search for the lost feminine in Christianity. In the book, we learn, if that's the right word, that Leonardo Da Vinci, a keeper of the secret, hides clues of the truth in his paintings, including the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper (i.e. The Dinner Party). The rose, fleshed out in Brown's book, like the core floral imagery of The Dinner Party, symbolizes the presence of the mother/goddess. Brown spins a tale of groups trying to suppress this knowledge, including members of Opus Dei, a conservative Catholic institution that maintains a headquarters deep within the core of our own Big Apple on Lexington Avenue and which has repudiated the book.

The pyramid of the Louvre Museum from The Da Vinci Code finds echoes in the triangular arrangement of this all-female supper housed inside the Brooklyn Museum. Hard-core Christians have denounced both the goddess centered feminist collaboration and the mystery book by the man. But, my guess is that The Da Vinci Code and its spin-offs will fade away, devolving into a fad or a question in a trivia game. The Dinner Party, on the other hand, will be watched over by guards, deep within the solid walls of the Brooklyn Museum, in a low-lit hushed room. Not The Last Supper, but perhaps the Last Laugh.

The Dinner Party is on view at the Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, NY. The museum is open Sunday 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM, Wednesday to Friday 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM and Saturday 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM. Suggested admission is $8.00 for adults and $4.00 for seniors and students with valid identification card. Children under 12 years of age and accompanied by an adult are admitted for free.

Images: Flowers, Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

WOTBA New York Events Calendar: Kick Off Your Shoes Edition Monday, May 11 - Monday, May 18, 2009

While some people are sadly out of work and many more subsist on freelance wages, with the latter now said to make up 26% of the U.S. workforce, New York is still a workaholic city full of people with incredible drive. One subset of the city, however, gets a little break this week - namely, many members of the university community. The big NYU commencement ceremony takes place this Wednesday at Yankee Stadium, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as speaker. Columbia University Commencement will be held the following week on Wednesday, May 20, 2009, and other area colleges and universities ceremonies are scheduled in the next two weeks. Many parents are in town to help pack up dorm rooms and to take their sons and daughters out to eat. If you are a college student reading this, repeat after me: "Per Se, Masa, Daniel, Le Bernardin, Jean Georges."

Yesterday, while leaving City Bakery on W. 18th, I came across a pair of high heel shoes on the curb. They look like someone just got sick of them, kicked them off and decided to make the rest of the journey on foot. In honor of this anonymous person (I say "person" and not "woman" because this is New York and you never know) who freed themselves of this footwear, I name the following selection of New York events for the week the "Kick Off Your Shoes Edition."

• Monday, May 11. Daniel Barenboim with members of the Staatskapelle Berlin. 7:30pm. Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall.

• Monday, May 11. Elmore Leonard. Road Dogs is his new novel. Barnes & Noble, 1972 Broadway. 7:30 p.m. Free.

• Tuesday, May 12. Ramblin’ Jack Elliott. Highline Ballroom, 431 W 16th St. 8 p.m. Tickets: advance $25, day of show $30 plus $10 minimum per person at tables

* Wednesday, May 13. Howard Zinn and Guests: Voices Of A Young People's History Of The United States. Tim Robbins, Amber Tamblyn, Avery Brooks and others will read sections of Howard Zinn’s landmark book. Zinn in attendance also. 92nd Street Y, 1395 Lexington Ave. 8 p.m Tickets: $27

• Thursday, May 14. John Ashbery. Reading his poems. The Poetry Project, St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery, 131 E 10th St. 8 p.m. Tickets: $8.

• Thursday, May 14. Michelle Shocked. City Winery 155 Varick St. 9 p.m. Tickets: $22–$35.

• Thursday, May 14. The Silos. Rodeo Bar, 375 Third Ave. 10 p.m. Tickets: at tables $10.

• Friday, May 15. John Prine with special guest, Justin Townes Earle. Beacon Theatre, 2124 Broadway. 8 p.m. Tickets: $40–$70.

• Friday, May 15. Frank Lloyd Wright: From Within Outward, co-organized by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. Guggenheim Museum. On view from May 15 through August 23, 2009, the 50th anniversary exhibition features sixty-four projects.

• Saturday, May 16. Guarneri String Quartet. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Ave. 8 p.m. $50.

• Sunday, May 17. AIDS WALK New York. Central Park. Arrive before 8:30 a.m. Registration and more information at official site.

• Monday, May 18. Birding Tours of Bryant Park. 8:00 a.m.–9:15 a.m. Free. Presented by NY Parks in partnership with the New York City Audubon Society.

Images: Moment of Liberation. Found shoes on W. 18th near Fifth Avenue the afternoon of May 10, 2009.

Friday Night Lights, New York-Style, From the Village to the Hudson

In the opening chapter of Moby Dick, Herman Melville describes a common wanderlust among Manhattoes for the sea. Sometimes, however, for those of us raised among flatland and spread-out landscapes beyond New York, a walk to the river's edge comes not out of longing for seafaring adventure but just to look at the sky. The city's density and urban canyons can become overbearing at times, and while not nearly matching the terror of closing walls of Edgar Allan Poe's The Pit and the Pendulum, it's sometimes necessary to escape them. A walk along the river provides the quick vacation, a time and place to reflect on the meaning of rivers, life, eternity, and New Jersey. Once refreshed, it's time to return to the city for coffee and a lightly toasted buttered bagel with cream cheese. Or, at night, some vino and pasta.



Near the closing of the day, a look west may suggest the potential for a beautiful sunset, especially the presence of pink, rose, and lavender in the sky. For those of us who live below 59th Street in Manhattan, Hudson River Park (official site) is just the place. Opening in eagerly anticipated stages, with North Chelsea Cove the most recent, the park features good lighting, esplanades, special events and rest facilities. The Greenwich Village section, pictured here along with nearby streets, was the first opened in the park. Pier 45 extends far out into the water and is popular during warm days. Those tallish modernist apartment buildings were designed by architect Richard Meier. I also recommend a walk farther north, from Pier 51 near Jane Street and then winding back toward Washington Square Park. Once out on the piers on a warm night, Manhattan can look like the Riviera.


View Through the West Village to the Hudson in a larger map

After the sun goes down, the Village comes alive, especially on Friday and Saturday nights, as visitors descend on the neighborhood. The winding streets, European-style cafes with outdoor seating, sports bars, small stores, music clubs, theaters and public parks offer so much that many stay awake all night to enjoy the neighborhood. I know this to be true, because I can hear revelers, especially the kind that are given to song after drink, outside my window. I try to get some sleep regardless, because the following day offers a chance for another walk, perhaps to a quiet spot on the East River to watch the morning sun rise over Brooklyn.

Note on map: This route is 2 miles, a good walk of healthy distance, but is more over-determined than necessary. A point of reference only, walking west through the Village should allow a good amount of improvisation, just like in the jazz and comedy clubs.

Images of Friday Night Lights by Walking Off the Big Apple, an infrequently homesick Texas-born resident of Greenwich Village, from Friday evening, May 8, 2009. Sometimes, WOTBA just needs some sky.

When the Cherry Blossoms Fall: A Walk through the Brooklyn Botanic Garden

A walk through a spring garden in New York during cherry blossom season at just the right time can be an exquisite experience, but sometimes personal schedules and the weather can throw off a well-timed visit. If you're slightly late, you're still lucky, because walking on the earth covered by millions of pink petals is the special and more surreal experience. Actually, a visit to a garden at other times of the year can be full of interest, even during the snow-covered days of botanical sleepiness. But the most welcome time for New York is early May. In the weeks following the average last frost in mid-April, petals unfurl, new shoots emerge from perennials, and the city becomes suddenly green again. In terms of seasons, New York is two different places - the one of fall and winter, and the other of spring and summer, and the emergence of one or the other feels like crossing over into a new country.



I highly recommend visiting the Brooklyn Botanic Garden after a visit to the Brooklyn Museum. After looking at art inspired by nature, and this week I visited the museum's Gustave Caillebotte exhibition, a walk through the garden affords a contemplation of how different artists picture nature. In Caillebotte's case, as with his fellow Impressionists, he was keen on painting how the light played on water, but he also framed his works with unusual perspectives, vanishing points, and a kind of cropping that's often associated with photography. After seeing his paintings, walk in the garden and then imagine framing scenes in similar fashion. A camera can be useful, but it's important to remember that artists who paint en plein air bring something to a work that photography often lacks - two eyes instead of one. Ah, but sometimes those eyes, like mine, can be a little near-sighted, throwing distant objects into abstract shapes.


View Brooklyn Art & Garden in a larger map

Because the Impressionists drew inspiration from Japanese aesthetics, the Japanese Garden at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden seems most visually attuned with this school of art. More formal places in the Garden suggest Baroque or 17th century French art, while wilder sections are in sync with the Romantic. If you've been visiting Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party at the museum, you'll appreciate flowers in a whole new way. The ponds and pools are conducive for reflection and contemplation, but not just for narcissists. It's hard to miss the colorful koi fish just underneath, sometimes breaking the surface for a gulp of air or brushing up next to a carefree duck.

Practical matters. To visit the Brooklyn Botanic Garden (official website) from the Brooklyn Museum (official website), leave the museum's back door and walk across the parking lot to a nearby entrance. Purchase the Art and Garden ticket for admission to both. The 2 and 3 train stops at the Eastern Parkway/Brooklyn Museum station. Visit these websites for more information.

Related post:
A New York Spring Calendar - Blooming Times, Seasonal Events, and Wildlife (2010)

Images by Walking Off the Big Apple.

Gustave Caillebotte: Impressions of Water

People often lose umbrellas, but I've held onto a special one for many years - a large parapluie (literally, for the rain, in French) with a wooden base and curved handle that upon opening reveals the painting Paris Street, Rainy Day by painter Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894). That particular work, housed in the Art Institute of Chicago, shows a well-dressed couple walking arm in arm down a sidewalk on a boulevard of Paris. The man is holding an umbrella, and just to the right another man walks forward into the picture, pulling his umbrella out of the way so as not to bump them. Behind these subjects in the foreground we see many others in motion crossing the street. With an elongated perspective that draws the eye back toward a building near an intersection of Gare Saint-Lazare and then back to again to the cobblestones up front, the painting established the painter-flâneur, an upper-class Parisian from a prosperous family, as the leading urban Impressionist.

With so much rain this week in New York, I've opened my umbrella more times than I can count. The image, though not on display in New York, also served to remind me to visit the Brooklyn Museum for the exhibit, Gustave Caillebotte: Impressionist Paintings from Paris to the Sea, and take in the work of a like-minded observer of nature and the city streets. Where in the previous post I cast doubts on Dylan as a flâneur, there's no doubt that Caillebotte fits the description. He strolls the streets in a top hat, builds boats, cultivates hobbies like photography, summers elsewhere, and due to his generous inheritance, doesn't worry about making money on his art. He bankrolls the work of others, including Monet, Renoir and Pissarro, by buying their paintings, and in the case of Monet, taking care of studio costs. He was so wealthy that few critics and taste-makers took him seriously as an artist.

Caillebotte's interest in photography is often given as a potential explanation for his odd points of view, skewed perspectives and distortions. While it's been difficult to document his use of the photographic image in his process, it's true that advances in photography in the 1870s led to a wider distribution of faster, hand-held cameras. The photogenic qualities of his work may be viewed in several paintings at the Brooklyn Museum exhibition, including Oarsmen Rowing on the Yerres, 1877. Still, he was a painter and curious to explore, along with his fellow Impressionists, qualities of light, perspective, color, reflections and water. While the Brooklyn exhibit offers many views of Paris and streets, the element of water - as rain drops on the street, waves in the ocean, or ripples stirred by oaring boatsmen in the river, stands out as a focal point for the artist. Though optics and light bridge the worlds of the photographer and painter, the passion for Caillebotte and his friends was not to photograph the scene but to render the effects of the play of light and water with paint on canvas.



After visiting the Caillebotte exhibit and other objects of interest in the Brooklyn Museum (I recommend exhibits at the Sackler Center for Feminist Art), it makes sense to visit the nearby Brooklyn Botanic Garden (above) to look at flowers and ripples on the water. Sometimes, images of our world, even in New York, still look like an Impressionist painting. Buy the art and garden pass for $16.

Gustave Caillebotte. Paris Street, Rainy Day (1877). Art Institute of Chicago.
Gustave Caillebotte. Le pont de l'Europe (1876) Petit Palais, Geneva
Gustave Caillebotte. L'Yerres, pluie (1875) Indiana Art Museum - Bloomington

Image of the Japanese Garden at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden by Walking Off the Big Apple from May 6, 2009.

Gustave Caillebotte: Impressionist Paintings from Paris to the Sea
Brooklyn Museum, Morris A. and Meyer Schapiro Wing, 5th Floor
Through July 5, 2009
200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, New York
Wednesday–Friday: 10 a.m.–5 p.m.; Saturday–Sunday: 11 a.m.–6 p.m.

Coming next: A walk through the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

For more on Impressionism and perception, see Walking with Seurat in the Deepening Darkness.

Back on the Boulevard: A Review of Bob Dylan's Together Through Life

Memory and forgetfulness...the varying international rhythms of an accordion, sometimes street French but often Mexican...chilly breezes and open streets...that gravely voice...here now are locked hearts, emptiness, but we find here too, among other things, a break-out jazz number with the swish of the drummed downbeat and the lowest note any troubadour can reach...Many dualities are at play in the new Dylan, Together Through Life, his 33rd solo album, but there's always an articulated wisdom of the street: "I know the streets. I've been here before," he sings. He has walked the sad boulevard a million times, this Bob Dylan, but now a chill is in the air, and the sun is sinking lower.

Bob Dylan is no flaneur, with a top hat and cane, but he has always expressed the sensibility of a street-wise boulevardier. While in real life we've lost him to an estate in Malibu, New Yorkers can take pride in Dylan's formative years on the streets and avenues of Greenwich Village. Here, at the crossroads of American blues, jazz, roots music, and folk, Dylan let the cross-cultural winds blow right through him, always the weatherman, arriving on the corner at just the right time to fuse poetry with the beat. And while we hear little of the genius lyricist in this new work, and indeed most all are co-authored with Grateful Dead's Robert Hunter, the sometimes prosaic lyrics actually serve to underscore the pedestrian dream theme of this album. They're not half bad these lyrics, taking them in context. The music is energetic, happily raw and not processed, singable, and often fun.

In some songs, it's possible to hear echoes of Jacques Brel's solitude, with striking similarities. The most flaneur-like, in terms of theme and Brel, is the jazzy "Life is Hard," about a man strolling down the street. Passing the old school yard, remembering a lost love, he feels emptiness - "I walk the boulevard, admitting life is hard." With other songs, like "This Dream of You," the melancholy of Willie Nelson's Teatro comes across, like he's reached his personal bottom, drowning in tequila at the border cantina.You expect Emmylou to pipe in, but instead, the "voice" on all the tracks is adeptly provided by the lead guitars. Snap out of it, Bob. Walk it off. And, yes, a song of reawakening soon follows. "I Feel a Change Comin' On - an autobiographical song - must be! -expresses a younger Dylan awakening in an old body, "listening to Billy Joe Shaver, and I'm reading James Joyce." Turning 68 at the end of the month, Dylan sings of "the full part of the day is already gone." But, he's not dead! And when the troubadour breaks into the snarling sarcasm of the final cut - "It's All Good," an indictment of indifference in a troubled world, we know the young man who lived on 4th St. and cared about the world is positively still there. Walking the proverbial boulevard, old troubadours know, always leads back into insight and rejuvenation.

Image by Walking Off the Big Apple, also growing older but still on a journey, somewhere on the streets of the SoHo neighborhood in New York City.

Related posts:
Freewheelin' Jones Street
"Froze Right to the Bone:" A Musical Interlude with Bob Dylan

WOTBA New York Events Calendar: Rainy Day Slacker Edition Monday, May 4 - Monday, May 11, 2009

This week appears to be one of those weeks that highlight change and transition, a tentative time between before and after. Nothing seems settled. Students at local universities and colleges are studying for finals, with commencement and graduation ceremonies coming up soon. For those of you not in college, WOTBA gives you permission to take the week off. That's right. Go to a play. Read a book. Bike around town. Stroll through the garden. Many people are under-employed or working as freelancers anyway, so why push it? You don't want to exploit yourself, do you? Let's spend the entire week watching others work.

• Monday, May 4. k.d lang and Meaghan Smith. St. George Theatre. 35 Hyatt St (at Central Ave). Staten Island. $50, $65, $85. 7:30 pm.

• Monday, May 4. Salman Rushdie and Kamila Shamsie. Barnes & Noble. 33 E 17th St. Free. 7 p.m.

• Tuesday, May 5. Branford Marsalis Quartet. Through Sun 7:30pm, 9:30pm. Jazz Standard 116 E 27th St. Tickets: $35

* Wednesday, May 6. Adrienne Rich. Reading from her new book of essays, The Human Eye. Brooklyn Public Library, Central Branch. Grand Army Plaza (at Flatbush Ave). Wed. 7 p.m. Free

• Wednesday, May 6. The Merchant of Venice. Brooklyn Academy of Music. BAM Harvey Theater. May 6—9, 12—16 at 7:30pm. May 10 & 17 at 3pm. By William Shakespeare. Watermill Theatre (UK) and Propeller production. All-male production directed by Edward Hall.

• Thursday, May 7. First day of Affordable Art Fair. 7W New York. 7 W 34th St . Tickets: $20, seniors and students $15, children 12 and under free. Sun 10 free for mothers with children. Thu noon–6pm , Fri–Sat noon–8pm , Sun noon–5pm

• Thursday, May 7. Brooklyn Blogfest. Bloggers chat up the bloggiest borough. The powerHouse Arena. 37 Main St. Dumbo. 7pm. Tickets: $10, seniors and students $5. Website.

• Thursday, May 7. Roxy Paine: Models and Drawings. Artist Reception and Book Signing: May 7, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm. James Cohan Gallery. 533 W 26th St. Through May 30 at the gallery. Paine's sculpture Maelstrom, a site-specific installation at The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden, is on view through October 25, 2009.

• Friday, May 8. Harlem in the Himalayas with Billy Bang and William Parker. Part of the Friday night series at Rubin Museum of Art, dedicated to art of the Himalayas, this time with jazz. 150 W 17th St. advance $18, day of show $20. Website.

• Saturday, May 9. Lincoln Center Guided Tour. 10:30 a.m. I highly recommend a guided tour of Lincoln Center, with visits to the New York State Theater, Avery Fisher Hall, the Metropolitan Opera House, or the Vivian Beaumont Theater. Call the Lincoln Center tour desk at 212-875-5350 to make your reservation. Theater availability is subject to change. $15.00 adults, $12 students, $12 seniors (65 and over), $8 children (12 and under).

• Sunday, May 10. Tofu Takedown. Highline Ballroom, 431 W 16th St. 4 p.m. $10.00. Renditions of tofu, for your vegan pleasure. Official site.

• Monday, May 11. Simon Loekle discusses 160th Anniversary of the Astor Place Riots. 7:00 p.m. Merchant's House Museum (29 East 4th Street). Cost: $15 per person; $10 MHM members.

Image: "Subway Cinema Frames" by Walking Off the Big Apple, on an IPhone camera.

A Slide Show and Description of My Vacation in Tribeca: Three Nights at the Tribeca Grand Hotel

During the middle decades of the previous century, it was not an unusual practice for some travelers to take slides of their journey and then once back home bore their friends and neighborhoods by inviting them over to see a slide show of their adventures. Usually held in the venue of a living room on in the sprawling den or a ranch house, these events were often accompanied by beverages and the passing around of Fritos and dip served on a festive platter. The host traveler would set up a portable screen, the kind you see in schools, and load a carousel on the slide projector with the slides, often placing one or two upside down by mistake. The images most often centered on the subjects, sporting sunglasses and bermuda shorts, standing immobile in front of a well-known attraction, be it the mighty Grand Canyon or the Sphinx or the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The more exotic, the more likely this event would occur.



So, it is my great pleasure to present to you a slide show of my three night and four day vacation in Tribeca, a neighborhood in New York City. Thanks to the readers of The Bloggers Guide, a website specializing in city guides from all over the world, voters in their ongoing competition titled the World Blogging Challenge deemed Walking Off the Big Apple worthy enough for the finals, representing the entire continent of North America. Thus, thanks to the sponsor Hotels.com, WOTBA won a three-night stay at the hotel of her choice. Exciting! But where should I stay? As a resident of the zip code 10012 and being a somewhat adventurous person, I have longed to further explore the wilds of 10013.

We begin with my chosen hotel, the Tribeca Grand Hotel. Let me say "thank you!" to Hotels.com once again, because the three nights at the Tribeca Grand introduced me to one of the friendliest hotel staffs I've ever encountered. Serious. These folks are the real deal. On top of the friendliness, I appreciated the overall design, the Church Lounge, and the attention to details in service. When I first arrived, for example, I realized to my chagrin that I need electricity to fully function, and after a quick call to the desk about needing more outlets, a tech guy arrived with a power strip for the phone and laptop. Otherwise, I walk most everywhere, keeping the carbon "footprint" on the low side. I especially liked the hotel's lighting, a critical mood-enhancing branch of design that is often overlooked.

My room on the fifth floor overlooked Walker Street, a nice bit of serendipity for a blog about walking the streets. Throughout my stay, when I wasn't attending the Tribeca Film Festival or sitting on a bench in the nearby Tribeca Park, I explored the neighborhood attractions. Most enchanting is the spectacle at dusk of artist Steven Rand's Church Lights, a revolving spectrum of color lights on three floors of his studio on Church Street. After inquiring about it, the hotel's concierge provided a link to the website. (Man, I could become so dependent on a concierge that functioned like a research librarian.) The stretch of West Broadway down here is lovely to explore on foot. I passed several of the favorite local dining places like Bubby's (120 Hudson Street) and Odeon (145 W. Broadway) and enjoyed the inflatable city crime fighters at Balloon Saloon (133 W. Broadway).

The only mishap of my vacation, and it was my fault, involved the hotel room's "sound masking system." There's a device on the wall with a volume control that allows the guest to turn up white noise, presumably to cut out the ambient noises of the street or from lobby parties. On the first night of my stay, as I was getting ready to turn in, I turned the volume up too high. Consequently, the manufactured noise resulted in about three hours of sleep, leaving me tired and weepy through a morning of movies. I realized the next day that I've grown accustomed to the noises of the city and cannot sleep without them.

On the last morning, and I slept like a rock the night before, I left the hotel early for a walk. Hearing a familiar buzzing sound, I looked up to see five helicopters holding positions almost directly over the hotel. Wandering down Church Street, in the direction of many assembling fire trucks and police vehicles, I learned from street vendors and livery drivers that a vacant building on Reade Street, between Broadway and Church, had partially collapsed (See NYT's story). When I arrived on the scene, a couple of residents of the neighborhood stopped to talk to me about what happened. They assumed that I lived nearby. Yes and no, I could have explained, but that was too complicated. It was time anyway for me to say goodbye to my lovely vacation and to begin the long trip home of 1.1 miles to the north, to a street above Canal.

Images from April 27-30, 2009 by Walking Off the Big Apple. Explore many more sights in Tribeca by following this link on WOTBA. Thanks, everyone!