As we assess where we have been in the first half of the trip, it has become clear that it is important that we just don't leave anything out that we will regret in the future. After all, if we do so, we might just have to come back.
On Saturday, we went down to the Brooklyn Museum. Brooklyn has become quite the focal point for young artists in New York City so we were interested to see what the borough's museum had to offer. We were not disappointed as it was a beautiful building and a comprehensive museum. It covered many culture's art and the space was majestic. The main draw for us was that most of the top floor was devoted to a very well known New York street artist named Keith Haring. Though we did not know him by name, we quickly figured out that we had seen his work for many years. I encourage you to do a Google search of images on "Keith Haring art" and you immediately recognize his work. To New Yorkers, his work is iconic, like Warhol, Lichtenstein, Pollack, etc. Perhaps more iconic, because this guy was a street artist who painted (frequently illegally) in the subway and on random walls. Many New Yorkers actually saw him working on a regular basis. We then took a subway to Chinatown and found a restaurant called Wo Hop that seemed to be very well regarded. It was great, but they hid some onions on me and I paid the price that night. We then took a subway back to the Upper East Side (UES) and a cross town bus to the Upper West Side (UWS) and we were home. After relaxing, we went to an off-Broadway theater of about 300 seats and saw a very interesting play called Lonely I'm Not. It was thought-provoking and starred Topher Grace. We took a subway home and walked about 4 miles.
Sunday was a Lauren day, which we so enjoy. Lauren and Ella (our grand-dog) came to the apartment early and after playing for awhile, the three of us took a subway and then a private bus to the Frieze Art Fair on Randall's Island. The Frieze Art Fair is in its first year in the US, but has about a decade in the UK. It is a very upscale art show, with major galleries from all over the world displaying. Hence it required a tent that was about three times the length of a football field and a $40 per person entry fee. Believe me that the art was priced way above our ability to buy. We enjoyed an outside lunch and went back to try to finish the fair. It was a total sell out and was close to wall-to-wall by the time we came back from lunch so we gave up and headed home. Upon arriving at the apartment, we took Ella for a walk in Central Park for about an hour and then I dog sat while the ladies went grocery shopping and did some cooking for the week. After dinner, Lauren and Ella left and we found that we had walked 5 1/2 miles, mostly at the art fair.
Monday found us taking the Stage Tour at Radio City where we actually got to meet a real, live Rockette and see the theater including the backstage. It was very impressive as you rarely see a 6,000 person movie theater that is now exclusively a performing arts theater. It is beautiful. We then took a subway to Lincoln Center for a tour of that complex. We almost missed that tour as Felice and I got to talking and actually missed our stop. So it was off the train, climb the stairs and go to the other tracks to go back where we should have been. The theaters there, and the grounds were nothing short of spectacular and these two tours were very worthwhile. We then walked up to The Shake Shack, a fast food hamburger place that is the hot spot in town. It has a following like In and Out Burger and the only way we could get in was to have lunch at 4:00. It was good, but not as good as our beloved Giant Hamburger in Mesa. We went home and did a little work for our businesses and then caught a show on Broadway. Now on Mondays, most theaters are dark, but this show, Peter and the Starcatcher, runs on Mondays. So Mondays are a night that actors from other shows can come and see the Monday shows. So we were lucky enough to see the show along with John Lithgow and Stephanie J. Block in the audience. This was a quirky show, that was a little slap sticky and cute starring Christian Borle, who many of you may know from Smash. It received many Tony nominations and I think it might just win a few. We walked 4 1/2 miles and it was an exhausting, but productive day.
Tuesday was an interesting day. I thought I would surprise Felice and take her to the Society of Illustrators as they have an exhibition of Al Hirschfield's drawings. When Felice was growing up, she and her dad used to look at the Hirschfield's and find the hidden "Nina"s that Al Hirschfield would hide in the caricatures. We found that the Society was not much to look at and the Hirschfield's were actually in their restaurant, so we ambled around as people were eating looking for "Nina"s in each drawing. From there we went to the NY Historical Society and took the docent led tour. Then we saw a movie on the history of NYC which was very interesting. After dinner at home, we went to Broadway for a revival of Anything Goes. This edition starred Stephanie J. Block and Joel Grey. I hate to sound like an old fuddy-duddy, but they don't make musicals like that any more. Singing, dancing, tap dancing, humor. There were no less than 5 memorable songs from that Cole Porter show and we left humming them. Yes, we enjoyed it, and it was made that much sweeter knowing that just 24 hours earlier, I was standing next to the star, Stephanie J. Block, in line. A mere 3 1/4 miles of walking as we got off easy on Tuesday.
Wednesday was a humid day. We took the subway to the Anne Frank Center; however the MTA (NY's mass transit authority) map was never updated for their move of a year ago and we wound up walking about a mile and a half in the humidity before we found it rather than the 1/4 we should have. It is a small museum, but effective. Surprisingly, they had no other visitors during our 2 hours there. From there, we took the subway to the Skyscraper Museum, which was likely financed by the NY Times, the New York Daily News and other newspapers as half of the presentations spoke of how newspapers were published. I think their involvement came because in the early days of skyscrapers, the newspapers in town all competed to have the tallest or biggest buildings. We of course were drawn to the area that showed models and told the story of The World Trade Center and the replacement buildings under construction. There were models and pictures of before, after and now. It was interesting how the dirt dug out of the ground to originally build it was used to create Battery Park and there is much more land there now than there was before. We took a long walk back to find the subway and then a long ride back to Broadway and 86th Street. We then had dinner at a restaurant called, Good Enough to Eat and ate at a table on the street. It was what you might call a comfort food restaurant and we particularly enjoyed watching the Upper West Sider's walking their kids home from school, getting home on the bus or beginning their evenings. We walked home and totalled 4 3/4 miles.
As of today we have walked over 126 miles and seen 13 shows. We also finished using our 30-day Metro Pass. Being the accountant that I am, I was curious how cost effective it was to pay $104 for 30 days of Metro travel versus paying $2.25 per ride. Basically, for it to be beneficial, we would have to use it at least 46 times and we probably used it double that. So it was a good buy. Since we have less than 30 days to go of our trip, we will be buying 7 day passes for $29. This will require 13 trips in a week to be cost effective. I am sure we will use the Metro more than twice a day so it will be a good buy.
There is still a long list of things we can possibly do so we are carefully assessing each option, the day of the week and the expected weather. Wish us luck that the last three weeks that we have here will be productive ones.
Gary and Felice
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