{"id":5946,"date":"2016-07-29T08:31:34","date_gmt":"2016-07-29T12:31:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=5946"},"modified":"2016-09-02T08:33:18","modified_gmt":"2016-09-02T12:33:18","slug":"summer-in-the-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=5946","title":{"rendered":"Summer in the City"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"MCNY\"

photo: Beyond My Ken, creative commons license<\/p><\/div>\n

On what seemed like the hottest day of the year, I took the train into Manhattan to celebrate the birthday of my long-time friend Nancy. We plan these excursions for each other instead of another present. We give \u201cthe gift of time,\u201d as another friend also named Nancy calls it.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve done all kinds of things and had many delicious lunches in restaurants I\u2019ve returned to gladly. Yesterday we visited two smaller museums 20 blocks up Fifth Avenue from The Met and still across the street from Central Park.<\/p>\n

The Museum of the City of New York has three exhibition floors, with rotating exhibits. The new gallery of the Tiffany Foundation, \u201cGilded New York,\u201d contained a few large portraits, gorgeous jewelry, and ornaments from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Small, but a gem. At the temporary portrait exhibit (through September 18), \u201cPicturing Prestige: New York Portraits, 1700-1860,\u201d we could get in close to see the incredible detail without worrying (or being told!) we were blocking someone else\u2019s view.<\/p>\n

\u201cRoz Chast: Cartoon Memoirs,\u201d is a large exhibit of the artist\u2019s original drawings, New Yorker<\/em> covers, and the like. It includes panels from her book, Can\u2019t We Talk about Something More Pleasant<\/em>, about the decline and deaths of her parents, showing how she processed that experience through her art. Indeed, much of the humor in her work results because we recognize our own vulnerabilities and absurdities. \u201cWe\u2019re not laughing at you, we\u2019re laughing with you.\u201d<\/p>\n

There also are galleries devoted to the Yiddish theater (through August 14) and activism in New York, from suffragettes to civil rights, from Stonewall to immigration.<\/p>\n

After we were finished there, crossed 104th street to El Museo del Barrio (free entry, because we\u2019d been to the MCNY), which has a major exhibit on the fashion illustrations of Antonio Lopez. I\u2019d read the nice review by Holland Carter<\/a> in the New York Times<\/em> and wanted to see it, but wasn\u2019t sure where the museum is. Now I know. Easy to get to. The museum bills itself as \u201cNew York\u2019s leading Latino cultural institution.\u201d Only the ground floor of its big building is the gallery space. El Museo also sponsors a wide range of performing arts events, cultural celebrations, and educational programs.<\/p>\n

Both museums have small caf\u00e9s, but they are not up to birthday requirements, so we walked down Madison fifteen blocks or so (in the shade as much as possible) for lunch.<\/p>\n

Thank you, Nancy, for being my friend for 43 years!<\/p>\n

Museum of the City of New York<\/a> \u2013 1220 Fifth Avenue @ 103rd Street; small caf\u00e9, nice gift shop\/book store<\/p>\n

El Museo del Barrio<\/a> \u2013 1230 Fifth Avenue @104th Street; small caf\u00e9; gift shop<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On what seemed like the hottest day of the year, I took the train into Manhattan to celebrate the birthday of my long-time friend Nancy. We plan these excursions for each other instead of another present. We give \u201cthe gift … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Summer in the City - museum choices NOT the Met","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[266,104,78],"tags":[166,91],"class_list":["post-5946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-the-morgue","category-travel","tag-creativity","tag-new-york"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-1xU","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5946"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5946\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5948,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5946\/revisions\/5948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}