Tuesday Morning: Finding a Path Out of New York's Blizzard

When dawn broke on Tuesday morning, and it was a beautiful sunrise by the way, it was apparent that the city would try its best to get back to normal. Out of economic necessity or out of sheer boredom, it was time to beat a path out of one of the worst storms in New York City history. The activity all morning centered around making literal paths to post-blizzard normal life - in clearing the streets, the sidewalks, and the runways.

daybreak over Washington Square Park, an optimistic sign

Images from the Blizzard, Monday Morning, New York City

I think many people were a little shocked Monday morning to see much snow had fallen in New York City overnight and how the snow had arranged itself after falling and blowing for many constant hours. It will take a few days for the city to get back to normal.

The winter scenes early morning after a big snowfall are always the best, before too many people start tramping through the snow drifts and before the big trucks arrive to clear the snow away.

LaGuardia Place, south of Washington Square Park. In the distance - One Fifth Avenue, a setback apartment building from the Art Deco era.

The Blizzard, Washington Square Park, Sunday 5 p.m.

At first the blizzard forecast for New York City seemed hard to believe. As the storm approached, each new forecast predicted greater and greater amounts of snow and blowing wind. But the storm did materialize. By 5 p.m. on Sunday, the storm shifted into high gear. Many people stayed hunkered down in their homes. Many people with dogs still needed to venture out in the elements.

As the light dawns on Monday, and a few people trudge out into the wind-battered city, the snow that has accumulated overnight is still hard to fathom.

Image by Walking Off the Big Apple from Sunday, December 26, 2010 at 5 p.m. iPhone with Hipstamatic app. Also see pictures from Monday morning and Tuesday morning.

Season's Greetings from Walking Off the Big Apple

Wishing you a very merry holiday. Thanks so much to readers old and new. Enjoy your journeys wherever you may live. - Teri

Walking Off the Big Apple will return January 3, 2011 with new strolling adventures. Image of the Washington Square Arch and tree from the evening of December 22, 2010.

A Story of Old U Nork: Adam Gopnik's The Steps Across the Water

The Steps Across the Water by Adam Gopnik, with illustrations by Bruce McCall (Hyperion Books, 2010, 304 pages, $17.99), may be designed for grades 3 to 5, but older readers, at least ones older than 12, may want to sneak a read before handing it over to a younger friend.

Just when a young girl named Rose begins to feel like she does not quite fit in with the New York family that adopted her, she comes across a magic staircase near a pond in Central Park. When she winds up the courage to climb up and down the magic stairs, she falls into the alternative universe of a place called U Nork. This fanciful city reflects similarities to her own metropolis, but it's more the New York of an old illustrator's imagination, one with dirigibles, flying giant pigeon taxis, hurried rude residents, and wise guy gangsters. Rose is on a quest for young girl things - in her case, a snow globe and a dog of her own, but as befitting a tale with a moral, she will discover greater lessons for her passageway into maturity.

After she arrives in U Nork, Rose finds herself in an unexpected position of power and must travel backq and forth from New York City to the curious other metropolis in order to solve the evolving mysteries. Along the way, a kinder old gentleman, her cartoonist father's colleague at a magazine (an homage to The New Yorker, home to many contributions by author Gopnik and illustrator McCall), leads her to New York's last remaining bookstore, and in one of the tale's finest sequences, to Washington Square Park. There, he reenacts Greenwich Village's greatest true story. Shopkeepers, just like in our lived experience, often hold the greatest secrets. Like Dorothy of Kansas, Rose of New York will find helpers in her quest, and a little dog, too.

New Yorkers with some knowledge of the city, especially as it was imagined in illustrations such as "King's Views of New York," souvenir booklets from the early 1900s that often showed futuristic images of flying airships and sky-high walkways, or in the 1939 World's Fair, should enjoy Gopnik's clever appropriations. Fans of Central Park should delight in recognition of the park's special places but grow alarmed when the park turns out to serve a more sinister role in U Nork. Gopnik throws in several sharp observances about New Yorkers in general, on top of a nod to Oz, Alice in Wonderland, a fashionable Ice Queen, a short mayor, and the holiday season. At times the mix is too much, and a particular bit of imagination involving U Nork’s eateries borders on the surreal. For practical-minded readers, however, the story also includes which department store sells the finest frozen yogurt. And for those of us who have graduated beyond the fifth grade, the large print is most appreciated.

This post is also going out in today's edition of Manhattan User's Guide.

The Moon Over Manhattan

Last night in New York, we had clear though blustery cold weather for the locals, if they were awake and outside, to watch the total lunar eclipse. The eclipse occurred on the same date as the winter solstice. The last such event took place on December 21, 1638. In this place and in that time, residents of New Amsterdam, the Dutch colony, and their indigenous American neighbors may have glimpsed up at a portentous red moon.

3:14 a.m. lunar eclipse as seen from somewhere in the Village.

From a balcony in the village once known to the Dutch as Noortwyck (present-day Greenwich Village), the moon looked full, orange-red, and dimensional, as the shadow of the Earth gave it shape. As the moon passed into eclipse and darkened, other stars that normally would not appear to the naked eye in the Manhattan sky revealed themselves. It was a beautiful and rare starry sky, but the star-struck night was hard to capture on a mobile phone.

20 (More) New Books for New York, New York

As soon as I finished compiling a list of books for the post, Required City Reading: 25 New Books for New York, New York, published in early November, many more titles presented themselves. Some were published later, but other notable books appeared earlier in the year. A few came out in 2009, but the paperback is now available. As with the former list, these are titles that involve New York as a prominent setting.

• Thomas Kramer, New York in Postcards 1880:1980: The Andreas Adam Collection (Scheidegger & Spiess; University of Chicago Press, October 2010). The 900 postcards, culled from an enormous personal collection, reveal historical changes, lost landmarks, and the modern cultural history of New York, from one style and art movement to another.

• Norval White, Elliot Willensky, and Fran Leadon, AIA Guide to New York City (Oxford, June 2010). The most indispensable guide to New York architecture, frequently cited on these pages, is now significantly updated to include new buildings and new thoughts on old buildings. Witty, opinionated and educational, required reading for anyone interested in the built environment of New York.

• The Staff of the New York Historical Society Library, When Did the Statue of Liberty Turn Green?: And 101 Other Questions About New York City. (Columbia University Press, September 2010). FAQs to the Library's staff and their answers. Humorous and informative urban history.

• Reuel Golden, NEW YORK: Portrait of a City (Taschen, September 2010). Coffee table book with 600 pictures by famous photographers and from several archives of the metropolis from 19th century days to the present.

• James Sturm and Brandon Elston, editors, Denys Wortman's New York: Portrait of the City in the 30s and 40s (Drawn and Quarterly, November 2010). Cartoonist Wortman is not well-known, but these vivid drawings of vintage New York are worth a full appreciation,

• Danielle Trussoni, Angelology. (Viking, March 2010). The story centers on fallen and bad angels, some of them living in Manhattan. When you're tired of vampires and zombies, try bad angels cavorting with the Rockefellers.

• Kenneth T. Jackson, editor, The Encyclopedia of New York City: Second Edition (Yale, December 2010). Epic work on the city includes 800 new entries. Its 1,584 pages address most all the questions about the city. With 700 illustrations, too.

• Mosette Broderick, Triumvirate: McKim, Mead & White: Art, Architecture, Scandal, and Class in America's Gilded Age (Knopf, October 2010) A new story and analysis of the one of the most influential architecture firms of the turn of the century, with emphasis on the differences among the three. The scandal mentioned in that title belongs to Stanford White.

• Larry Stempel, Showtime: A History of the Broadway Musical Theater (W.W. Norton & Company, September 2010). Beginning with the Astor Place Opera House riot of 1849, Stempel traces the evolution of one of America's best-known art forms, while illuminating the themes of the most important musicals. A hefty tome with 826 pages.

• Jazz: Herman Leonard (Bloomsbury, October 2010). Photographer Leonard opened a studio in Greenwich Village the the years following WWII, a golden age for the neighborhood and for its jazz scene. HIs images of Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Billie Holiday, and more have become the iconic images associated with the jazz greats.

• Patti Smith, Just Kids (Ecco/HarperColllins, November 2010, paper) Now in paperback, the memoir by rock legend Smith has won a National Book Award. Here's the New York of Hotel Chelsea, the punk scene, William Burroughs, and most of all, a friendship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe.

• Edmund White, City Boy: My Life in New York During the 1960s and 20s (Bloomsbury, September 2010). Now in paperback, novelist White's account of his move to Manhattan in 1962, encountering a changing gay culture, the city's literati, and his own literary ambitions.

The Frick Collection at 75: Plain Citizens in a Rich Man's Home

On Thursday, December 16, 2010, seventy-five years after its debut as a museum, The Frick Collection (1 East 70th Street, off of 5th Ave.) will celebrate its anniversary day by opening its doors to the public free of charge. Hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. For members of the contemporary art-loving public, a visit to the opulent Fifth Avenue mansion of wealthy industrialist and art collector Henry Clay Frick (1849-1919) will offer many similarities to those of Depression-era citizens who gazed upon the wonders of the galleries for the first time. They will see the same great European paintings and decorative arts enjoyed by the generation of the 1930s – stunning works by Vermeer, Rembrandt, Goya, and many more, masterpieces that continue to make the Frick an important destination for the fine arts and in much the same atmosphere. Except for the haunting echo of economic stress, only the outside world has changed.

Consider the world in which The Frick Collection opened to the public in the 1930s. Immediately following a photo essay describing the transmission difficulties and lack of commercial viability associated with something called "television," a precarious invention in black and white, the December 27, 1937 issue of LIFE ran a splashy feature titled "The Frick Home Becomes $40,000,000 Art Museum," accompanied by the first color reproductions of some of the marvelous paintings inside. (The three paintings shown here were included in the essay.)

Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675)

Mistress and Maid, c. 1666–67

Oil on canvas

35 ½ x 31 inches

The Frick Collection, New York

Photo: Michael Bodycomb

For the public of the 1930s, the technology of television was a little hard to grasp, especially since the actual receiving sets were not yet available, but painted pictures were part of most everyone's consciousness. LIFE reaches for the best analogy it can make for the transmission of televised images: "The procedure is similar to taking the paint of a canvas grain by grain, sending the grains one by one to a distant point and placing them on another canvas as they arrive." Seeing the paintings in the Frick house, which had opened to the public two years before, was the far bigger deal  - "In its scope and quality it transcends many an older European collection, enables plain citizens to enjoy $40,000,000 worth of art in the quiet atmosphere of a rich man's home."

A Convergence of Santas

I began seeing the Santas this morning as they were headed toward their starting places for this year's NYC Santacon. I saw them on most streets of the Village before 10 a.m.. As I was heading uptown around noon to visit The Frick Collection, I really didn't think the Santas would come to the Upper East Side.

Wrong. I first saw the Santas on the uptown 6 train, and then I was surprised to see them get off at 68th Street. Just as I was about to walk into the Frick, the Santas received their command to converge at Bethesda Fountain in Central Park. I was happily caught up in a Santa wave.

Santas wait for a green light at Lexington and E 68th.

Santas march on E 68th.

Santas cross the street and do not look both ways.

Mr. Morgan's Library

36th Street entrance (detail).
The McKim Building.

For those who love books as objects but find themselves staring at screens all day, harboring the dream of a personal book-lined library with comfortable arm chairs and a Citizen Kane-size fireplace, then stepping out of the digital age and into Mr. Morgan's Library and Mr. Morgan's Study in the McKim Building of the Morgan Library and Museum presents the opportunity to indulge the fantasy. Maybe envy is a better word. A classically inspired 1906 building on 36th Street and Madison Avenue, designed by Charles Follen McKim, housed these sumptuous rooms for financier John Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913), and exploring them after their recent restoration is akin to seeing the world anew with a much better pair of prescription eye glasses. The colorful and brightened rooms of the renovated McKim Building now play an even more lovely counterpoint to the airiness and whiteness of the 2006 additions of architect Renzo Piano. Furthermore, an intriguing opened vault off the study and especially a new North Room, one formerly used by the Morgan's librarian, offer yet another excuse to visit a place where rare original manuscripts are treated like prized relics of a medieval kingdom.

Mr. Morgan's Library (East Room).
The Morgan Library & Museum.
Photography by Graham Haber, 2010.
Courtesy The Morgan Library & Museum. 

Secret doors, zodiac signs on ceiling murals, a life mask of General George Washington, the extraordinary jeweled Lindau Gospel, the latter an inheritance of Charlemagne's empire - all this sounds like something out of a Dan Brown novel, as if J. P. were privy to secrets of the Knights Templar. Yet, while luxurious the surroundings on 36th St. in Murray Hill, Morgan's biblio-extravaganza is not that far different in visual splendor from the great European libraries of past centuries, as evidenced in the large photographs by Massimo Listri on exhibit upstairs in the Morgan Library and Museum. And in the city, the Reading Room of the New York Public Library is arguably an even more dramatic jaw-dropping spectacular, certainly of larger scale, the result of a public-private merger of the Astor and Lenox libraries with Andrew Carnegie's money. Still, for someone's own private library, Mr. Morgan had few peers. He even had his own pair of lion statues, created by NYPL's "Patience” and "Fortitude" sculptor Edward Clark Potter (1857-1923), fronting his Palladian entrance way. Maybe he was in the Illuminati. He certainly exercised power. It was in his red study here, even more luminously red and regal following the renovation, that the 70-year-old banking giant concocted the plan to save the financial system of the United States during the Panic of 1907.

A Visit to the Neue Galerie

One way to deal with the blustery cold weather that we've experienced in New York of late is to buck up, bundle up, go outside and then head to an attractive destination, preferably one in an elegant setting that offers great art, wonderful food, and a gift shop. And let's say it's a Monday. So where would this be? Try Neue Galerie on Fifth Avenue at 86th Street, a museum specializing in early twentieth-century German and Austrian art. The focus of the collection encompasses the extraordinary artistic worlds of Vienna at the turn of the century and the amazing art movements associated with the Weimar Republic. Building on two collections amassed by art dealer Serge Sabarsky and business man and collector Ronald Lauder, the galerie is housed in a fine 1914 building designed by Carrère and Hastings. Stepping through the front door is like passing into another country.

As a transition from the frightful weather of New York streets, a leisurely lunch at Cafe Sabarsky can set the mood for the later artistic exploration of the premises. By leisurely, I'm speaking of a plate of warm sausage or schnitzel and a glass of wine, followed by an espresso and a small Viennese pastry accompanied by frothy whipped cream. The European cafe atmosphere is accentuated by the sight of the coffee and wine service in plain view, a marble sideboard lined with Viennese pastries, comfortable cafe chairs designed by Adolf Loos, a worn wooden floor, and a pleasant cafe clamor of clanking dishes and conversational murmurs. During a recent visit, most of the patrons donned warm-looking sweaters and practical shoes, so it's a place that's not too formal to be uncomfortable. A few of the women sported twenties-style cloche hats, a sight that made me think for a minute that we were in interwar Vienna.

After lunch and before visiting the special exhibits, I stopped to pay my respects to Adele in the central gallery of the second floor. By Adele, I mean, of course, Gustav Klimt's famous portrait, Adele Bloch-Bauer I (1907), the centerpiece of the Neue Galerie collection and one that seems more odd with each visit. What's striking is the pallor of her face set amidst the elaborate decorative golden details and textures, her thin arms adorned with bracelets touching at clutched nervous fingers. Joining her in the gallery are additional works by Klimt, as well as paintings by Egon Schiele and Oskar Kokoschka. Drawings on paper in the adjacent dimly-lit gallery (better to protect them) include exquisite ones by Schiele, though not his most erotic ones.

New York Museum Exhibitions, Winter 2010-2011: A Selected List, With Openings in December, January, and February

This list is so last year. Click here for 2011-2012 listings.

For those of us who love the sounds of strumming, guitars are also objects of great beauty. Coming this February, the Metropolitan Museum of Art opens the exhibit, Guitar Heroes: Legendary Craftsmen from Italy to New York (on view from February 9, 2011 - July 4, 2011), highlighting the aesthetic and craft of the popular instrument. In a harmonic convergence, or something in the way of museum serendipity, MoMA will open a new exhibit one week later titled Picasso: Guitars 1912-1914 (on view from February 13 - June 6, 2011.

Looking at the winter-time exhibitions, the museums seem to be reinforcing their own brands. Nothing wrong with that. MoMA is currently showing the success of this strategy with its vast Abstract Expressionist New York (on view through April 25, 2011). Coming this winter, the Frick Collection will feature an exhibit on Rembrandt drawn from its own collection as well as from the great collection of Dutch art historian and amateur collector Frederik Johannes Lugt (1884–1970). The Guggenheim will display a major exhibition of modern art based on its own collection as well. The Neue Galerie will certainly have the know-how to stage Birth of the Modern: Style and Identity in Vienna 1900.

Asia Society

Other intriguing exhibitions scheduled to open in the coming months include Brooklyn Museum's Tipi: Heritage of the Great Plains, the International Center of Photography's Wang Qingsong: When Worlds Collide (large color photo works and videos by a Chinese painter-turned-directorial photographer) and a major exhibition of works by art revolutionary Lynda Benglis at the New Museum.

Often an exhibition based on just one or two paintings can make a big splash. Shakespeare fans can look forward to visiting the Morgan Library & Museum's exhibition of the Cobbe portraits of Shakespeare and Southampton (The Changing Face of William Shakespeare), their first appearance outside the British Isles. In this vein, the Met's A Renaissance Masterpiece Revealed: Filippino Lippi's Madonna and Child will showcase the beauty of a recently restored painting by one the great artists of 15th-century Florence.

I've added the Park Avenue Armory to this seasonal list of art exhibitions. Highly recommended is their current offering, Leonardo's Last Supper: A Vision by Peter Greenaway, through January 6, 2011. As the Armory is within walking distance of Asia Society, also visit the latter's wonderful Yoshitomo Nara: Nobody's Fool (ongoing through January 2, 2011), one of the most charming and wicked exhibitions you'll ever see. *

Upcoming exhibitions are noted in bold type.

Temporary exhibitions:

Will Ryman, The Roses
Through May 31, 2011
Park Avenue, between 57th and 67th Streets, Manhattan
Park Avenue Malls, Manhattan
Read about The Roses and see many pictures here on Walking Off the Big Apple.

American Academy of Arts and Letters, 633 West 155th Street (Audubon Terrace):

Annual exhibitions are held in the spring. See the nearby Hispanic Society, noted below.

• The Invitational Exhibition of Visual Arts

March 2011 - April 2011

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

• Eugene Von Bruenchenhein

Through October 9, 2011

• Quilts: Masterworks from the American Folk Art Museum

Through October 16, 2011

• Infinite Variety: Three Centuries of Red and White Quilts (at Park Avenue Armory)

March 25 - 30, 2011

American Museum of Natural History (Central Park West and 79th St.):

• exhibits include Race to the End of the Earth (tales of Antarctic exploration); Traveling the Silk Road; Mysteries of the Great Lakes, and more.

• Brain: The Inside Story

Through August 14, 2011

Asia Society (725 Park Avenue at 70th Street):

• A Prince's Manuscript Unbound: Muhammad Juki's Shahnamah
Through May 1, 2011

Brooklyn Museum

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

• Sam Taylor-Wood: "Ghosts"

Through August 14, 2011

• Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera

Through April 10, 2011

• reOrder: An Architectural Environment by Situ Studio

Through January 15, 2012

• Tipi: Heritage of the Great Plains

Through May 15, 2011

A Mortal's Guide to the Angels of New York City

A certain city on the other coast may claim, based on its name alone, the nickname of "City of Angels,"  but in truth, the angelic city of New York can rightfully claim a whole host of the winged ones for its own.

Read on, mortals of Gotham!

Angel of the Waters (1873)  Central Park

• Angel of the Waters (1873), also known as Bethesda Fountain, is a commanding sculpture by Emma Stebbins (1815-1882) in Central Park and is arguably the city's best known angel.

• Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes by Tony Kushner. The aforementioned sculpture in Central Park (image: right) was prominently featured in the 2003 HBO miniseries of the play directed by Mike Nichols.

• Angel Corella, principal dancer with American Ballet Theater, is also Artistic Director of his own company, the Corella Ballet Castilla y León.

• Angel of the IRT, in Grand Army Plaza Station, Brooklyn, a mural created by artist Jane Greengold in 1993 called Wings for the IRT, The Irresistable Romance of Travel.

• Angel Orensanz Foundation for the Arts, 172 Norfolk Street, is an important cultural organization on the Lower East Side, sponsoring lectures, performances, and exhibitions. The foundation maintains a Gothic Revival building dating from 1849, the former Anschi Chesed Synagogue. Orensanz is a multimedia artist.

• Angel Records is a recording label founded in New York City and owned by EMI specializing in classical and Broadway music. It operates under the Blue Note Label Group. Its related label is called Seraphim Records.

Angel Street Thrift Shop

• Angel Street Thrift Shop, 118 West 17th St., (image: left) was established in 1997, with sales benefitting individuals and families dealing with substance abuse, HIV/AIDS, and mental illness. The store's affordable merchandise is displayed carefully and with ample room, making for a very pleasant shopping experience.

• Angelica Kitchen, 300 East 12th St., is a popular restaurant specializing in organic vegetarian and seasonal fare. No animal products, refined sugar, etc. Try their wonderful chili or daily special.

• Angelika Film Center, 18 W. Houston St, is an established arthouse showcasing independent films.

• Angelology is the first novel by Danielle Trussoni, and the story centers on fallen and bad angels, some of them living in Manhattan.

• Angels, Angels, Angels, is a charming little book of angel drawings by Andy Warhol, accompanied by choice quotations from the artist. (Bulfinch, 1994).

• Angels and Kings is the name of a bar at 500 East 11th Street in the East Village.