Touring Brooklyn

Don at entrance to Green-Wood Cemetery

Well, today is our last day in New York. We decided to make it a Brooklyn day, so after breakfast we hopped on the Subway, traveled down the length of Manhattan, under the East River, and into Brooklyn to 25^th Street. We walked a couple blocks to Green-wood Cemetery in Greenwood Heights. It is a National Historic Landmark. The cemetery was founded in 1838 and has always been a fashionable place to be buried. The list of famous people buried here is huge. In 1860 it rivaled Niagara Falls as a place for tourists to visit!

It is 478 acres of hills, valleys, glacial ponds, and winding paths. We only managed to traverse a small portion of it. We trudged up Battle Avenue to see the monument to the Revolutionary War. The Battle of Brooklyn, one of the first battles between the British and the Americans, was fought here. From the top of the hill you can see the Statue of Liberty, which I thought was most meaningful.

Suzanne at Monument to the Battle of Brooklyn

We continued along the meandering paths admiring the many tombstones, monuments, mausoleums, statues, and all the beautiful plants. It was all so interesting. We stopped at one of the lakes to eat lunch and watch an egret who was looking for fish (he never seemed to find one!). We stopped in the historic chapel, which was very simple with lovely stained glass.

After this we got back on the subway and went to Smith Street where we visited a new book store, Books are Magic. They had shelves of books published by the New York Times Book Review which I had never heard of.

We continued our walk along Smith to Atlantic Avenue which is one of the main shopping streets of Brooklyn. We finally ended up at the subway on Court Street and headed back to our hotel.

Our last adventure was trying to find a deli restaurant where Don could have pastrami and I could have chopped liver. I can’t believe that it was so hard to find one in New York City! We ended up taking the bus back to Ben’s Deli at 209 W. 38^th St. and had a wonderful meal. I would definitely recommend this restaurant.

Can you find the egret?

The week end in New York City

Well, here it is Sunday, July 9 and we have one day left in New York. I have not felt well all week end, so our activities have been minimal!

On Saturday we met Hildie for lunch at Benares, an Indian buffet which has very good food. Then we went to see the play “Oslo” at the Vivian Beaumont Theater in Lincoln Center. This is a very dense play about negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis brokered by the Norwegians in the early 1990’s. It was very well acted and they attempted to insert humor into the tension among all of the players. It would have been better to study up on the situation before going because a lot of the dialogue was lost to me! It was nice being together, anyway!

Suzanne at Lincoln Center

On Sunday I went to mass at St. Paul the Apostle Church which is just a couple of blocks from here. I expected a good choir, but it was just a cantor. Oh, well, it felt good to be in church!

We also visited a couple of flea markets this week end. After visiting the Cooper-Hewitt, I had a new appreciation for old iron and pottery. However, I decided I didn’t want to take heavy stuff home with me, so I just bought some jewelry made out of old stuff!

We are always looking for the best pizza restaurant. We learned today that our favorite deli, Arties, had closed, so we tried the pizza at Big Nicks. So far that is the winner. We also liked Justinos Pizza, but not the pizza at Saccos.

Tonight we took in a concert at Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center. It was a chamber music concert with a terrific clarinetist, strings, and piano. They played Beethoven, Weber, and Schumann - all so beautiful, well worth the price of admission.

Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum

Friday, July 7, we were planning to go to a new museum, called the Met Breuer. It is part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which has been extended into the building where the Whitney Museum used to be. However, I wasn’t feeling too well and it was pouring down rain in the morning, so we did not go.

Sistine Chapel exhibit at the Oculus

After lunch I was feeling better and the sun came out, so we decided to salvage the rest of the day and visit the Cooper-Hewitt Museum on 5^th Avenue at 91^st Street. We were there years ago, but they have changing exhibits and the current one is called the Age of Jazz.

The museum is a former Carnegie Mansion which was extensively remodeled to accommodate the design collection of the Hewitt sisters and their grandfather, John Cooper. We could still see many of the lovely features of the old house, the wood paneling –ceilings and walls, stained glass windows, grand staircase, chandeliers, etc. The museum is the Design Museum of the Smithsonian.

So, all of the exhibits featured beautiful designs for all sorts of familiar and exotic objects. The Jazz Age featured items from the 20’s and 30’s. I really love the clean lines of that period – beautiful silver tea sets with square shapes, wood desks with open shelves and minimal decoration, chairs with metal arms and legs. Of course, my favorite was the jewelry and other decorative items. There were lots of jeweled, enameled, gold & silver boxes and cases. The art deco pieces were also lovely. There were paintings, book covers, clothing, piano scores, wall paper, on and on. It was really almost too much to take in. Plus there were pieces from the original Hewitt sisters collections. The wrought iron bird cages were particularly interesting, and also the models of spiral staircases.

An interesting feature was the special pen that they gave us. We could use it to quickly download the descriptions of any items we particularly liked. They put it up on their Web site after we returned the pens and we can look at the items on our own computer. This is another place I would highly recommend visiting.

Looking for new activities

We always like to find new things to do in New York. However, on Wednesday, the day after the 4^th we repeated a couple activities. We met Hildie in the  afternoon and spent a couple of hours walking

Hildie and Suzanne on the High Line

in the High Line Park. We did this a couple of years ago, but it has really changed – I’m not sure for the better. All of the plantings have matured, but somehow they did not seem as beautiful as before. The meatpacking neighborhood has become very “in” and consequently many of the lovely old buildings have been torn down and an architectural variety of high rises are being built. I’m sure it will quickly become an expensive and highly desirable place to live! Because of all the building there were many scaffolds all along the park which obstructed views and detracted from the art work. After our walk we had dinner and saw a musical, “War Paint,” starring Patti Lupone and Christine Ebersole.

Don on the One Step Bridge

The next day, we did find something new to do. We had never been to Snug Harbor on Staten Island so decided to do that. We took the free Staten Island ferry to the island and then the bus for a short ride to the gates of Snug Harbor, Old Sailors Home. It was built in the 1800’s as a home for old and weary sailors. After many permutations it is now owned by the city and called the Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Garden. It is truly a beautiful spot. The buildings are old and in need of renovation, but the gardens are gorgeous. We especially enjoyed the Chinese Scholars Garden. It is a replica of one built in China and we had fun pointing out the features we had learned about in our trip to China; the moon gate, one-step bridge, tile patterns on the floors, meandering stream, tea house, windows framing views of plants,strange shaped rocks, tiled roofs with interesting water spouts, a seemingly endless variety of patterns. I would definitely recommend this as a spot to spend an afternoon.

Going to the movies in NYC

Our hotel is in a rather spectacular location for the activities that we like to do – close to Lincoln Center, Columbus Circle and Central Park, Carnegie Hall, and Hell’s Kitchen. So, on Monday, July 3 we headed over to Lincoln Center to see what was going on. We approached it from the back (10^th Avenue) and actually entered through a part we had never walked on before. We saw there was an Asian Film Festival in one of the new film theaters, the Francesca Beale Theater. So we bought tickets for the 6:30 show. We had time to do some shopping and eat before we were back for the movie, Okja. It was a delightful Korean film with an ecological message involving a super pig, a 10 year old Korean girl, and an evil corporation run by Tilda Swinton and her twin sister! I hope it has some commercial success.

Tuesday was the Fourth of July, so we figured we had to find some non tourist things to do. We bought a one week subway pass (the world’s best bargain for $16, senior rate.) We actually ended up doing a lot of walking. We visited Grand Army Plaza at 5^th Avenue and Central Park. The statue of General Sherman has been newly gilded and the Pulitzer Fountain in front of the Plaza Hotel was running – two beautiful, old monuments. We also looked at the temporary outdoor art installation consisting of several concrete chairs, sofas, and free standing windows emulating the sitting room of a torn down 5^th Avenue mansion.

Don sitting in "The Living Room"

Suzanne admires Morpho's Nest in the CadmiumHouse

We then walked to Park Avenue to see an installation of painted concrete slabs in the median. That left us rather cold! But the better thing was when we decided to see the movie “Wonder Woman” at a nearby theater. Paying $17 each for tickets to sit in a lounge chair and watch a big screen film did rather set us back on our heels! By the time we got back to our hotel we decided the best thing would be to watch the fireworks on TV and that WAS the best!

2017 trip to Washington DC and New York City

Samantha & Suzanne relax on her deck

 I can’t believe that we have been gone for over a week! This is our third year to spend a week in Washington DC attending the DAR Continental Congress and then spending the following week or so in Manhattan. I have procrastinated writing this blog because I wasn’t sure I had much new to say!

We left Santa Monica on Saturday, June 24 and flew direct to Washington. Samantha S was kind enough to offer her newly purchased house as our staging ground for the week in DC.  Even though she had to go to work, she was the perfect hostess. We had our own room and bath and the full use of the kitchen. Her parents, friends from LA, were also visiting so we did lots together.

Our time was spent going to the National Archives I and II and the Colonial Dames and the DAR Libraries to do genealogy research. We attended several evening activities in Continental Hall, I sang in the DAR chorus, and we went to the Schools Luncheon on Friday. All in all it was a successful trip.

Suzanne at Madonna of the Trails statue in Bethesda MD

On Sunday, July 2, Don and I moved on to New York City via the train from Union Station to Penn Station. From there we found our way to our hotel, the Fairfield Inn on 58^th Street between 10^th and 11^th Avenue. We have a compact room on the 13^th floor with a view of the office building across the way! We had dinner at a Greek restaurant around the corner and readied ourselves for a week and a half of activities in the City.