Page 4 of 6
Bronx, New York
You can look at a rose, just any rose, accept that it's perfect, let it dry on the wall
I have found that in the past few years I have started to feel a little more Winter Madness than I used to. All Spring, Summer and Fall, I find myself being somewhat adventurous, at lease sometimes, and use this somewhat adventurous spirit to go somewhere, to walk around outside, to do something. But in January and February these past few years, the miserable weather and a general lack of interesting things to do (seriously, why can’t any local museum step up in January or February with a good exhibition) makes me feel trapped inside for far too long. It was still cold in March by the time I went here to the Orchid Show at the New York Botanical Gardens but, for me at least, it represented hope that things somehow might get better soon, and that (finally) Spring may be coming.
It was (almost) exactly a month later and I was finally outside again and walking among the cherry blossoms at Branch Brook Park, a public park designed by Fredrick Law Olmsted in Newark, New Jersey that famously has more cherry trees than Washington DC. I took the Newark Light Rail to the Park Avenue Station, then walked the entire three or four (or possibly five) mile length of the park to return via the Branch Brook Park Station. Along the way I saw a lot of those trees, probably too many at times, all seemingly on their own damn schedule as to when they think its a good time to be in full bloom.
We continue the theme of gardens (or being outside) with some pictures of a fake garden taken inside a basement. This is The Forest Within, a free art installation at Genesis House, a building in New York that is not named for a book of the bible or for a magic space device that Ricardo Montalban was after in one of the better Star Trek movies but instead for a Korean car company (a company which, in all honestly, may be named after that magic space device that Ricardo Montalban was after in one of the better Star Trek movies, who is to say really).
We’re back outside again and at a real garden. This is Untermyer Gardens, an absolutely spectacular free garden located on a steep hill overlooking the Hudson River in Yonkers. Untermyer Gardens had been on my list of places to visit for a long time, a list that I spent some effort this summer to try and actually complete. I don’t know why I waited so long, because this place was just wonderful, with beautiful gardens, great views and, for some reason that I don’t quite understand, no cafe. Seriously they could literally mint money if they just added a halfway decent overpriced cafe and garden shop here.
We’re continuing our way up the Hudson River and are now all the way up in Cold Spring to visit the Magazzino Italian Art Museum, another place on that list I kept on my phone of places I had never been to but wanted to visit. The building, designed by Miguel Quismondo, was small but interesting, and the collection of Arte Povera was also, well, small but interesting. Although in the Magazzino Italian Art Museum’s defense, a lot of the museum was closed that day as they were working on a new exhibit installation.
The Magazzino Italian Art Museum is not just a small but interesting museum with a small but interesting art collection inside, it is also (somewhat) famous for housing some small but interesting Sardinian donkeys on site. Sure, you might say that sardinian donkeys have absolutely nothing to do with art (or, in this case, Arte Povera) but then again, who is to really say that they don’t.
Since we already drove all the way up to Cold Spring, we might as well drive just a few miles further up the road to Beacon to visit Dia: Beacon, one of my favorite museums and one that I’ll use any excuse I can think of to go and visit.
Dia: Beacon isn’t the only thing to see in Beacon, it is also where you can board a ferry out to see Bannerman Castle, another item on that phone list of places I wanted to see but (until this year) never actually visited. The ferry (on a crazy hot summer day) was nice on the river, and the island and castle (a favorite landmark from an Amtrak or Metro North Hudson Line train) was interesting to learn about. It was never a residence but instead a storage facility for old Civil War munitions, and it was so badly built that visitors aren’t allowed inside or even close enough to worry about a big chunk of it falling on you and crushing you to death. The docent went out of their way to imply that we were lucky to see as much of it today as we can, and that in the future it will be nothing but a big pile of poorly made bricks and a fading memory of what once was.
The theme of this page of this slideshow has morphed from just being happy to be outside to gardens to places I had never been to that I kept as a list on my phone to here, The Cloisters. I had been to The Cloisters before, so it wasn’t on that list, but maybe it should have been since it was probably (about) ten years or so since my last visit. Honestly not all that much has changed in those past ten years in a museum all about Medieval art, but a return visit was welcome and a great excuse to finally break down and buy a membership to the Met.
With that brand new Met membership card, I walked through Fort Tyron Park, took an A train to a C train, walked across the park and went to the real Met (sorry, The Cloisters, but as nice as you are, you’re no Met). I used to find visits to the Met exhausting, but being a member has changed all that. Now, instead of feeling like I need to see as much as I can in one visit, I can focus on one area, or on a collection I haven’t been to in a while, and leave not feeling like I needed to be there from rope drop to closing to get my money’s worth.
