For The Love of Travel

I’m so lucky, it’s another sunny day!! On board the Upper Manhattan and Bronx bus tour…the cathedral of St John the Divine was originally designed in the Byzantine Revival-Romanesque Revival styles, the plan was changed after 1909 to a Gothic Revival design. Gorgeous figures of saints carved into exterior columns on the western side of the church.

The General Grant National Memorial, Morningside Heights is the I’final resting place of Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885), the 18th President of the United States, and his wife, Julia Dent Grant (1826–1902). As commanding general, Grant led the Union Armies to victory over the Confederacy in the American Civil War, which ended shortly after Robert E. Lee surrendered to him at Appomattox in 1865.

Malcolm Shabazz Mosque was where Malcolm X preached until he left the Nation of Islam in 1964. Malcolm X, 1925 – 1965, was an African-American Muslim minister and a human rights activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of blacks, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its crimes against black Americans; detractors accused him of preaching racism and violence. He has been called one of the greatest and most influential African Americans in history. 

The Apollo Theater in the Harlem neighbourhood of Manhattan is a noted venue for African-American performers. The theater, which has a capacity of 1506, in 1934, was opened to black patrons – previously it had been a whites-only venue. The Hall of Fame has inducted such renowned performers and music-industry figures as Ella Fitzgerald, James Brown, Little Richard, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight &The Pips, Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones, Chaka Khan and Patti LaBelle.

WOWIE, AWESOME, FABULICIOUS! I’m talking The Met! Went to its modern art section and luxuriated in previous loves….Monet, Gaugin, Van Gogh, Degas, Pissarro, Klee, Klimt. NEW loves….Paul Sigac, Henri Regnault, Joseph Stella and Man Ray. Loved the stained glass of “Joseph’s brethren discover money in their grain sacks”, ca. 1530! 

‘ Ugolino and his sons’ by Carpeaux is an art work located just outside one lunch place in the Met. This intensely Romantic sculpture derives from the passage in Inferno, in which Dante describes the imprisonment in 1288 and subsequent death by starvation of the Pisan count Ugolino della Gherardesca and his offspring. Carpeaux depicts the moment when Ugolino, condemned to die of starvation, does not accept his children’s entreaties to eat them!  Carpeaux had a painstaking concern with anatomical realism. A sensation in Rome, it brought Carpeaux many commissions.

A walk through Central Park yielded an energetic and fun performance from some Bronx gymnasts and at ‘Strawberry Fields’ section of the park, some sensational community singing of John Lennon’s music on his birthday…what a day !!

Wonderful sunny day again, woo hoo. Off to stroll through Greenwich village, referred to by locals as simply “the Village”, is a largely residential neighbourhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan. A majority of the district is now home to upper middle class families. For the last 2 centuries, it has been known as an artists’ haven, the Bohemian capital, the cradle of the modern LGBTI movement, and the East Coast birthplace of both the Beat and ’60s counterculture movements. 

Then strolled through to the Lower East Side to hear the history of immigration and to walk the precinct to understand the living situation of different tides of émigrés as they landed on shore. The Tenement museum is a great help in understanding the issues. Essex Market opened in 1940 and signalled the end of the pushcart era that was the neighbourhood’s defining character. The Jewish Daily Forward Building, newspaper still published today, was a popular socialist newspaper that was culturally Jewish but secular! The decorative work on the facade has relief busts of the famous socialists Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Ferdinand Lassalle and William Liebknecht. Orchard St in the area is gentrifying, with expensive little cafés, restaurants and galleries starting to line the street. (Saw some endearing posters in one gallery…..I had to take a pic). Above however are the (tenement building) remains of a disgraceful history of immigrant neglect and discriminatory legislation by Government; different but not unlike what’s currently happening in Aust.

Lastly, hopped the Upper Manhattan bus for a short journey until Central Park, to get a view of some of the modern architecture in the city….lots of glass that looks gorgeous against a vibrant blue sky. More on that bus tomorrow……

Using the NY Pass, I jumped on board the Downtown and Brooklyn tour bus to see locations I might want to return to for a greater explore. Ooh, lordy, Greenwich village looked good as did Soho, and the East side with the Tenement museum and best Chinese restaurant in town.    2 and a half hours later….visited the Rockefeller Center, commissioned by JD Rockefeller in 1928, a complex of 19 commercial buildings covering 22 acres between 48th and 51st streets; the older and original 14 Art Deco office buildings from the 1930s, and a set of four International-style towers. It is among the last major building projects in the United States to incorporate a program of integrated public art.

The Fire Department was having a promotion about Fire Education Week in the Plaza and all the dignitaries were present. Including yummy fire dude observing proceedings!!

The centerpiece of the Center is the 70-floor, GE Building (“30 Rock”, also the name of a comedy television show) centered behind the sunken plaza. The building is the setting for the famous “Lunchtime atop a Skyscraper” photograph, taken by Charles C. Ebbets in 1932 of construction workers sitting on a steel beam without safety harnesses eating lunch above an 260m drop to the ground. The skyscraper is the headquarters of NBC and houses most of the network’s New York studios. It’s home to the observation deck, the Top of the Rock, which allows visitors a unique 360-degree panoramic view of the city. Pity it was such a grey afternoon, visibility poor for photos.

Paul Manship’s highly recognizable bronze gilded statue of the Greek legend of the Titan Prometheus recumbent, bringing fire to mankind, features prominently in the sunken plaza at the front of 30 Rockefeller Plaza.

The famed annual Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree sits above it. The ice skating rink is located just below and in front of the statue…what a sight in winter!!

Everything takes time in NY with lots of queuing so by the time I came down from the observation deck it was time to get the subway, have an early dinner, and come back to downtown for the next play I’m seeing….”Book of Mormon” @ the Eugene O’Neill Theatre.

The Book of Mormon is a religious satire musical with book, lyrics, and music by Trey Parker, Robert Lopez, and Matt Stone. Best known for creating the animated comedy South Park, Parker and Stone co-created the music with Lopez, a co-composer/co-lyricist of Avenue Q. The Book of Mormon tells the story of two young Mormon missionaries sent to a remote village in northern Uganda, where a brutal warlord is threatening the local population. Naïve and optimistic, the two missionaries try to share the Book of Mormon, one of their scriptures—which only one of them has read—but have trouble connecting with the locals, who are more worried about war, famine, poverty, and AIDS than about religion. A very young, energetic cast made the play rock! Another very entertaining night!

Stopped off at the sumptuous Lillies bar over the road for a nightcap before making my way home…gorgeous. http://timessquare.lilliesnyc.com/?cat=17