This was my fourth brief visit to New York, and I left with the same ambivalent feelings as before. Plenty to love, but plenty to hate. I should have stayed longer than a day and a bit, but Irene intervened. Even with longer, I suspect I’d have the same reaction. I have to stay gone long enough for the good to outweigh the bad, and then I’ll be back again.
The good? Those stellar museums for a start. This trip I only had time for one, the follow-up visit to the Rubin (www.rmanyc.org) I’d been promising myself since my too-short first look. This time, besides a delicious display of “Masterworks” from the permanent collection, I enjoyed an exhibition on Christian, Muslim and Buddhist pilgrimages, and was fascinated by artifacts collected by Quentin Roosevelt, and botanist-explorer Joseph Rock, from the Naxi in southwest China. I had visited the Naxi area, around Lijiang, in 2004, and was pleased to learn more about the culture. In the basement I ecountered photographs of the world’s largest pilgrimage (so far), in India in 2001, and developed a new appreciation of the meaning of “crush” and “crowd”.
Thanks to the hurricane I didn’t make my planned return visites to the Cloisters and the Morgan, and I had had some thoughts about making a third visit to the Museum of Art and Design. I did make it down to Columbus Circle, but just for lunch. Another return visit, this time to Bouchon Bakery. Arriving exactly at opening time I scored the perfect table – Columbus’ satue was right in front of me. The food lived up to the view, with pickled onions adding an interesting sweet note to a chicken and romaine salad.
I finally made it to a Broadway show on this trip. I was renting a room in an Upper East Side apartment owned by a friend I met on fodors.com, and she found a deal for tickets to see Tyne Daly in “Master Class”, which I enjoyed more than I expected. The next night I watched Ballets with a Twist perform the lively and amusing “Cocktail Hour” for free at the David Rubenstein Atrium at the Lincoln Center. Note: if you plan to attend one of their “Target Free Thursdays”, get there before 7:00. I did score a seat for the (long) wait, but in order to see the dancers I had to stand for the performance.
Museums. Food. Performances. That air of expectation, of urgency. The good. The bad? Well, I always seem to have bad weather (although a hurricane is a new low!), but I can hardly fault the city for that. What I do fault is the grunge. One look at New York’s subway system and you understand the meaning of “decaying infrastructure”. Above ground is often no better. The place is surely safer than it used to be, but it sure is showng its age, in a way much older European cities seem to avoid.
Next time you feel the need to visit the Museum of Art & Design
make a reservation @ their resto, Robert on the 9th floor. We
had a fabulous brunch there @ a window table overlooking the
Park & Columbus Circle.
Also if you can get back in Oct., there is OpenHouse New York
on 10/15 & 16 which is very interesting. All sorts of free
things to see & do. Unfortunately, I will be away this yr.
Thanks for the restaurant tip!
I’ll still be on this trip in October, maybe next year.
Glad you avoided the hurricane, sorry to hear it cut short your trip though…
On the subject of New York’s ageing I didn’t think it was looking so bad when I was there last year, compared to the European cities I’ve been too, especially Lisbon, but then you’re more widely travelled than me so I’ll take your word for it š
Funny, you’re the second person I’ve seen complain about Lisbon lately. I didn’t think it looked that bad. Their tube system is certainly in much, much better shape than New York’s!
Nothing particularly wrong with Lisbon we had a lovely week there but the amount of graffiti and general feeling of disrepair was hard to ignore. Especially when you compared it to Belem which was all glossy (probably because most of it is a UNESCO world heritage site…)