Flow On, East River: Brooklyn to Manhattan, Once Again Upon a Ferry

For two hundred years, crossing the East River by ferry was a commonplace activity although often unpredictable. Residents of Brooklyn routinely commuted to Manhattan by this variable way of water, subject to storms and tides, no doubt a stomach-churning experience during a fierce storm or frightening during the icy waters of winter. During the 18th century, in addition to weather hazards, commuters often complained about inebriated boatmen or boats overloaded with cattle. With its inaugural service in 1814, the steam-powered Fulton Ferry made the voyage not only safer and faster but much more pleasurable. Poets like Walt Whitman could then focus on the metaphors of "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" as opposed to simply hoping to reach the other shore.

Pier 11 at Wall Street

The decline of ferry service began with the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1883, putting many East River ferry routes out of business. According to Manhattan's Lost Streetcars by Stephen L. Meyers (Arcadia Publishing, 2005), at the time of the bridge's opening, "there were at least 12 ferry routes in operation between Manhattan and Brooklyn, using 10 different ferry terminals in Brooklyn and 11 in Manhattan." Now, a hundred and twenty years later, give or take a few years, we're back on ferries on the East River. Like the first Fulton Ferry, they are wildly popular. As noted in The Wall Street Journal ("Ferry Is Well Afloat"), the city counted more than 109,000 people riding the new East River Ferry from its inaugural voyage on June 13 through this past Sunday.

A Proud Weekend in New York City

This past weekend, the avenues and streets of New York served as the main venue for an historic celebration, one long in the making. Beginning late Friday night when the New York Senate passed new legislation allowing for same-sex marriage in the state, in a dramatic 33 to 29 vote, through Sunday's Pride march down Fifth Avenue and the street party that followed, freedom-loving New Yorkers commemorated the occasion with an abundant measure of open and expressive joy. The Stonewall Inn at 53 Christopher Street in the Village, the site of the 1969 uprising, became a central point of interest, but revelers at Sunday's march - estimated at 2 million, according to event organizers, up from the usual 1.5 million at the annual event - dispersed throughout the West Village and beyond. It was easy to make fast friends out on the streets. There were many hugs and kisses to go around. The weather was close to rainbow-like, too.

Wedding veils were the most popular fashion accessory along Fifth Avenue this Sunday, yet it's taken many years to get this far down this aisle. (Actual ceremonies may begin at the end of July.) On the judge's stage at Fifth and 8th Street, the hard-working D.I.V.A.s (Drag Initiative to Vanquish AIDS), a funny troupe of edutainers who served as announcers for the event, reminded the spectators that the walk down Fifth Avenue, while more festive than your average parade, must still be called a march, a determined walk to demonstrate political power and will.

Strolling Notes from Recent New York Walks: Mostly Wine and Lofty Views of Architecture

• Visitors to the new segment of the High Line, if they're walking from the south, immediately come across a picturesque church scene near 21st Street. Just to the east side of the line we see the back of the Church of the Guardian Angel, situated at the northwest corner of W. 21st St. and Tenth Avenue. The church was built in 1930, designed by architect John Van Pelt in the Italian Romanesque style. Here's a picture of the High Line side and the Tenth Avenue side. The church is an active Catholic church in the neighborhood with its own parochial school.

Church of the Guardian Angel, High Line view (l) and street view (r)

In a Window Gallery: Al Hirschfeld on Eugene O'Neill

Those of us who grew up with a keen interest in the theater certainly know the wonderful drawings of Al Hirschfeld (1903-2003), the celebrated American caricaturist known for his Broadway portraits. Witty and with a sharp sense of observation, Hirschfeld created elegant line drawings that lifted the work to a high level of modern art. When each new Hirschfeld illustration appeared in The New York Times, as they did so for several decades and for multiple generations, his fans would spend a long time with the drawing, admiring his dead-on caricatures of celebrities and eagerly locating each "Nina," the name of his daughter and whose name he hid in the drawings. Such a lively and fun spirit infuses the caricatures that you would never figure Hirschfeld would make a great interpreter of the work of the more somber playwright Eugene O'Neill (1888-1953) much less be a good friend.



A wonderful display of Hirschfeld's interpretation of O'Neill in NYU's Kimmel Center Window Gallery in the Village proves otherwise. Each window is devoted to one play, illustrated with Hirschfeld's documentation of multiple productions over decades - famous originals, beginning with Strange Interlude (1928) as well as many successful revivals, including those on TV and on film. He outlived his playwright friend by nearly five decades, interpreting O'Neill through many posthumous productions, including the original production of the autobiographical Long Day's Journey Into Night (1956).

A Typical Night and Day in Washington Square Park (Photos)

We're entering the typical days of summer now with warm sunny days leading into pleasant nights, frequented by a rain shower or two. This past Thursday evening was one of the most perfect of summer nights, neither hot nor cold. People assumed their typical roles. Some sat on park benches - either alone, in couples, or in groups. Some walked through the paths. Musicians played music. The chess guys played chess. Visitors wandered through the park to snap pictures of the picturesque arch. On this evening, a young woman frolicked in the fountain. This is also typical.

Washington Square Park. Thursday evening, June 16, 2011, from 8:20 p.m. to 9 p.m. -

Just Looking: How to Visit SoHo Without Really Shopping

New York's fashionable SoHo is so famously packed with shoppers, especially on the weekend, that it's a wonder there's anything to do there except shop. Groups of shoppers stand on street corners to plot their next strategic move, carefully weighing the virtues of the next store based on variables of proximity, price, and trends. People line up outside the Apple Store on Greene and Prince, often long before the doors open, ready to snap up the new gadget. Along the fashion-intensive blocks of Broadway and at intersections of cross streets, especially at Prince and Spring Streets, so many shoppers clog the sidewalks that it's often difficult to pass through. Many locals put off errands until Monday.

A Vagabond's Dream: Walking the High Line

An aging vagabond poet of our city once had a strange dream about a park on an elevated old rail line, not so high above a stretch of the western part of the island.

In the dream, the once familiar rail line was no longer overrun with weeds but had been prettified and cleaned up, with exotic trees and strange new grasses.

Summer Sightseeing in New York City: The 1881 Edition

The summer season, with its relatively slower pace - it's been too hot of late to move quickly - tends to be the time we venture out to see new sights in the city or to cool off on the beaches. This summer season of 2011, many residents and visitors have put on the top of their sightseeing list a visit to the High Line, the repurposed rail line turned into a park. The second segment north of 20th Street opened this week. Also, Governors Island remains a novel attraction, affording a quick ferry trip to its shoreline and campus-like setting.

In perusing vintage New York sightseeing guides, many of which are available as Google eBooks and in the public domain, I came across a fascinating, informed, and often humorous guide written by a Philadelphia native named Joel Cook. The book, Brief summer rambles near Philadelphia: Described in a series of letters written for the Public ledger during the summer of 1881, was published the following year. Readers today may enjoy Cook's observations, especially for an insight on how Cook reacted to new and future sights of the city.

A Walk on Lower Fifth Avenue: Illusory Scenes in Black and White

From the steps of the Salmagundi Art Club at 47 Fifth Avenue, looking south.
An historic art club founded in the 1871 by people who loved to sketch, the club moved to this 1852 brownstone townhouse, originally Irad Hawley House, in 1917.

Like the headwaters for a river that runs upstream, Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village serves as the base for the mighty Fifth Avenue. From the park, the avenue runs north all the way to the Harlem River at 142nd street, bustling at key intersections like Madison Square at 23rd, the Empire State Building at 34th St., Bryant Park at 42nd, and the southeast corner of Central Park at 59th St. Lower Fifth Avenue, stretching from Washington Square to the Flatiron Building at Fifth Avenue and 23rd St., may not be as well known as the more famous blocks from Rockefeller Center to Central Park, but this more sedate stretch of avenue, a comparative dowager, connects in spirit to New York's late Gilded Age as well as to the first stirrings of bohemianism in the Village. It's a pleasure to walk slowly.

at the beginning of Fifth Avenue, looking south to the Washington Square Arch,
built in 1895

elegant revolving doors at 24 Fifth Avenue.
Note the pretty cursive writing on the entrance mat.

A Long-Awaited Opening at Washington Square Park

The eastern half of Washington Square Park, under wraps and off limits for the last twenty months, opened to the public on June 2, 2011. The wait has been so long, especially for local residents, that I resigned myself to the notion that the park renovations were not meant for the living but were for future generations. It's been so long that the last time I devoted a whole post to park developments, outside of posting pictures of the park here and there, was on May 20, 2009, the day after the renovated fountain area and northwest section of the park - the so-called Phase I - opened to the general public. Those areas had been closed for a year and a half. Like last time, waiting for this part of the park to open felt like forever, and like last time, it feels good just to have the park back again.

the grass is greener...lawns in Washington Square Park

Like the renovated western section, this part of the park feels more formal than the park design it replaced, but that's largely because of its newness and the fact that the older park had fallen into great disrepair. In many ways, it feels and looks the same, just vastly greener with new trees and bright grassy lawns.

southeastern entrance to Washington Square Park

Hitting the Long Drive: Golf and Other Pursuits on Pier 25, Hudson River Park

When I was a little girl and invited to my first birthday party at a miniature golf course, I was only familiar with the kind of golf I watched on television. That was PGA golf as played by Arnold Palmer or Jack Nicklaus on storied courses such as Pebble Beach, Augusta National, or Saint Andrews. So, as a little tot, setting up at the first hole for my first inaugural swing of a golf club at this mini-golf course in some hot part of north Texas, I just mimicked what I'd seen on TV. Therefore, assuming all first opening tee shots involved driving the ball as hard and as far as possible, I let go with a massive swing. It was fantastic. The ball soared through the air way over the entire course and eventually into the parking lot. The ball came close to hitting about three people on its way up. The adults supervising the party went into shock and quickly pulled the little me aside to explain the distinctions between big golf and this version before me.



Whenever I see a miniature golf course, I immediately have these fond flashbacks. So, when I first saw the mini-golf course on the Pier 25 in the Tribeca section of Hudson River Park - especially with that kitsch feature of a Bedrock cave - I wanted to line up at the first hole, take a big swing, and drive a ball as far as the eye could see, deep into the Hudson River. Too bad the big me showed some restraint. I didn't even play.

New York Museum Exhibitions, Summer 2011: A Selected List, With Openings in June, July, and August

For current listings, please consult The Fall 2011 preview and list, now posted.


Preview Summer 2011 Museum Exhibitions

Summer visitors in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's
American Wing

Climate-controlled museum galleries feel particularly great during New York's hot summers. The cool dry air, necessary for art conservation, does wonders as a respite from hot and humid weather. The summer invites excuses to spend the whole day within the big museums such as the Met or MoMA, enjoying the range of art on display, the museum cafes, shops, and outdoor spaces. The Met has its roof, where a handful of sculptures by Anthony Caro are on display, and MoMA features the popular sculpture garden. While new shows are fewer in number in the summer than in the high seasons of fall and spring, there's still plenty new to see. While I don't know which exhibitions will be hot, as they haven't opened yet, I can briefing describe the ones that sound cool.

Let's start with the to-do list. The Morgan Library and Museum, known for its own unequaled collection of manuscripts, opens Lists: To-dos, Illustrated Inventories, Collected Thoughts, and Other Artists' Enumerations from the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art. We all make these sorts of lists, so it will be fun to check out those of people like Pablo Picasso, Alexander Calder, Eero Saarinen, and Lee Krasner. Up at The Museum of the City of New York, look for citified furniture, decorative objects and photography documenting the Colonial Revival movement in an exhibit titled The American Style: Colonial Revival and the Modern Metropolis. While in the neighborhood, check out El Museo's Bienal: The (S) Files 2011, the museum's sixth biennial showcasing innovative work by Latino, Caribbean, and Latin American artists.

The Whitney Museum presents a major exhibition this summer of the work of Lyonel Feininger (1871–1956). Born in New York, the artist moved to Germany at the age of 16 and became one of the significant artists associated with German Expressionism and the Bauhaus. With the rise of the Nazi Party in the 1930s, Feininger and his wife moved back to the United States, and he continued to flourish as an artist with his blend of realism and abstraction.

Elsewhere, the Metropolitan Museum of Art will be featuring its collection of thirteen paintings by Frans Hals, the great Dutch Master known for his spirited portraits of individuals and groups. The Guggenheim Museum showcases the first U.S. retrospective of painter, sculptor, and philosopher Lee Ufan, an artist whose large tactile brushstrokes demand engagement with the viewer. In late August, MoMA presents an environmental and participatory sound installation by Brazilian artist Carlito Carvalhosa.

The New Museum will present Ostalgia, an exhibition of more than thirty artists from twenty countries across Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Republics as well as works produced by Western European artists who have commented on representations of the East. At the Studio Museum in Harlem, look for Spiral: Perspectives on an African-American Art Collective, focusing on work by the members of the 1960s group founded by Romare Bearden, including works by Bearden, Charles Alston, Norman Lewis and Hale Woodruff.

Stay cool. The complete listings, with details of openings and ongoing exhibits, continue below.


PUBLIC ART

The listings for temporary public art in New York are now listed under the post, A Fine Season for Public Art: Temporary Works in New York City. The list includes a map.

MUSEUM EXHIBITIONS IN NEW YORK, SUMMER 2011

Upcoming exhibitions below are noted in bold type.

MUSEUMS AND ART CENTERS

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.

• no exhibits currently on display

American Folk Art Museum, 2 Lincoln Square, Columbus Ave.  at 66th Street:
• Super Stars, a quilt exhibition
Through September 2011

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

• exhibits include The World's Largest Dinosaurs; Brain: The Inside Story; Highway of an Empire: The Great Inca Road; Frogs: A Chorus of Colors; and more.

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

Brooklyn Museum

• The Buddhist Heritage of Pakistan: Art of Gandhara

Through October 30, 2011

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

• reOrder: An Architectural Environment by Situ Studio

Through January 15, 2012