Roadtrip to NYC: Manhattan Day 3
The outside of Rockefeller University, then MOMA, back to Columbus Circle, then exploring Mid-town, finishing up with down to Bleeker Street for drinks.
What was a relatively early start for the day was soon eaten up by simply getting from Penn Station to Rockfeller in the rain; I knew it would be time-consuming, but throwing in a little extra rain definitely didn't help things. Meeting up with Joe to get the MOMA pass (thanks, Joe!) was brief, but the walk down Park Avenue, past the extremely-ridiculously-expensive office towers and Maserati dealership was a nice view of the wealthy side of Manhattan. Kind of like Beverly Hills, only less intimidating. One building there had an indoor public space, complete with shops and a pianist on a grand piano-- very cool.
Met up with Eileen near MOMA, grabbed lunch nearby, and headed inside MOMA for three hours of browsing. Lunch from a street cart was tempting, but we skipped that because outside was wet with earlier rain. Joel caught us at MOMA a few hours later, after being caught in a massive rainstorm hovering over Long Island.
We skipped the sculpture garden and floor 2 (contemporary galleries and books) and somehow never made it back to them. Architecture and Design on floor 3 were fun, with a huge desk lamp, an old Mac, a Smart Fortwo car, and all sorts of neat stuff on display. Painting and Scuplture occupy floors 4 and 5. They were occupied with an excellent collection from Dali, Cezanne, Warhol, Monet, Picasso, van Gogh, and the usual collection of famous painters and sculptors. Sculpture work from Monet was a surprise, although I suspect that's mostly due to my ignorance of art. *grin* Floor 6 held the special exhibit from Dada, which Joel evidently enjoyed. I think Eileen was tired by then, so we made a much quicker visit.
A series of very large monochromatic paintings (essentially 10'x10' or larger solid-color canvases) occupied a decent amount of space on some of the interior walls. Standing there staring at it, a museum proctor helped us out. He directed me to stand further away from it, off to the right. A piece of artwork diagonally across from the painting was reflected in it. He then said to stand off to the left at the same angle and distance. A different piece of artwork-- a painting with a target-- was reflected in the main painting. Then he had me stand centered in front of the large monochromatic painting, then walk closer to it. Somewhat confused at this point, he said to wave. I waved. Eileen looked on at me, confused. "Now you're in the painting!"
Cheesy. Extremely cheesy. But he made us laugh!
Wandering back downstairs, Photography on floor 3 was okay, evidently they rotate their collection and the current part wasn't terribly interesting. The helicopter suspended between floors was random too...
Leaving MOMA, we wandered to Columbus Circle to meet up with Ann, where we drank coffee and snacked at Bouchon Bakery. Next, we wandered over to Ann's very nice place in mid-town (and probably very expensive!), where there was a very nice view from 20 floors up. We threw away lots of old papers, made paper airplanes, and generally made a nusance of ourselves for an hour til it was time to walk the-dog-with-a-mohawk.
Met up with Roy, Ann's boyfriend, then wandered some of the same streets with did with the dog til we found a suitable Italian place for dinner, which was delicious. (sadly, no, no food pictures. It was dimly lit and seemed like a nice enough place that four people pulling out cameras and doing a zillion pictures wouldn't have been the best idea.) Judgement may have been slightly affected by the wine and the fact that we were all hungry.
Then... down to Bleeker Street for drinks. We wandered a lot, unable to find the desired bar of choice and running next to NYU's campus for a bit til we gave up trying to find the original bars that Eileen and Roy were looking for, and found another one Roy liked. The Dove was unusually empty, he says, but we got to sit down by the front windows, enjoy our drinks, and chat for a few hours. We got to chat about all kinds of random stuff. Digital rectal exams and the medical profession, farts, foreign travel, stupid things we've done, life in big cities, being UCLA students (well, ok, we dictated that path), pretty much everything and everything.
Then for good measure at 3am when we were leaving, it started to rain again. Lovely!
