Walking Off the Big Apple

The American landscape painter Thomas Cole (1801–1848), the founder of the Hudson River School, was born in Northern England in 1801 when his native landscape, leafy and green, began to wither under the grimy dark soot of smokestacks and scarring by machines. When he was 17, he accompanied his family to America where he would live and thrive, most famously in the Hudson River Valley, and become a citizen. On this side of the Atlantic, he would again witness the beginning of the fall of Eden. Steps of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fifth Avenue. Largely taught by itinerant artists in America, Cole returned to England in 1829-31 to formally study art, taking classes in life drawing and studying the great works in museums. He studied the pastoral English landscapes of John Constable, especially the ruins of Hadleigh Castle , and the civilized French classical seasides of Claude Lorrain. He met the wild and wooly J.M.W. Turner in person but whose paintings struck him as a little t

SEE UPDATED CALENDAR FOR 2019 HERE . 2018 dates: Let's spring forward to blooming times in New York City, the best locations for witnessing spring's beginnings, and springtime events. While the occasional snow could blow through the city, we're just weeks now from callery pears in bloom and opening day at the ballpark. Riverside Park. Mid-April. Blooming Times •  Central Park Conservancy's website  lists blooming times within the park. During the month of March we begin to see crocus, daffodils, forsythia, snowdrops, witch-hazel, and hellebores. Species tulips will emerge in several places, but the Shakespeare Garden and Conservatory Garden are particularly good places to catch the beginning of spring blooms. Central Park near E. 72nd St., saucer magnolia, typically end of March. •  Citywide Blooming Calendar from New York City Department of Parks & Recreation April is usually the month when full blooms appear in New York City, a