Museums in March or the March to the Museums: Rosetravel's New York Trip
Mar 9th, 2009, 03:10 PM
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Museums in March or the March to the Museums: Rosetravel's New York Trip
This is a quick trip report to thank the wonderful New Yorkers who helped me figure out where to stay and eat and what to do on a recent 4 ½ day trip to NYC.
DH and I took advantage of the super-cheap prices this March for a brief visit to the big city. Loved it. Our plan for our trip was to visit museums and visit with our daughter who recently moved to the east coast from Seattle. DH and I arrived Wednesday and our daughter joined us on Friday. We all left Sunday.
We visited many of New York's terrific museums: the Met, the Cloisters, Brooklyn Museum of Art, MOMA, the Guggenheim. All were thrilling. Well, all but one. We would have visited more but our feet wore out. We happily walked the streets of the Upper West Side, Brooklyn Heights, Greenwich Village and the Lower East Side. We walked until we couldn't walk anymore. Sadly, despite all the walking we could only eat so much. We tried, but we ended up visiting just a few of the wonderful restaurants. This was definitely a budget trip so we carefully chose the most promising of the least expensive options.
Details to come.
DH and I took advantage of the super-cheap prices this March for a brief visit to the big city. Loved it. Our plan for our trip was to visit museums and visit with our daughter who recently moved to the east coast from Seattle. DH and I arrived Wednesday and our daughter joined us on Friday. We all left Sunday.
We visited many of New York's terrific museums: the Met, the Cloisters, Brooklyn Museum of Art, MOMA, the Guggenheim. All were thrilling. Well, all but one. We would have visited more but our feet wore out. We happily walked the streets of the Upper West Side, Brooklyn Heights, Greenwich Village and the Lower East Side. We walked until we couldn't walk anymore. Sadly, despite all the walking we could only eat so much. We tried, but we ended up visiting just a few of the wonderful restaurants. This was definitely a budget trip so we carefully chose the most promising of the least expensive options.
Details to come.
Mar 9th, 2009, 05:36 PM
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TRANSPORTATION
We flew American Air from Seattle to JFK. All good but they no longer feed you on the plane. That was fine, just wish I’d known on the flight east – I was hungry.
We took the Air Train then the E subway into Manhattan, switched to the C heading uptown and voila, there we were. We took the subway or walked on this trip. Love subways and wish Seattle had one. DH had the funny notion that we were entering tunnels or worm holes for travel: we entered Sea-Tac airport and the next time we were out of our tunnel under the open sky, we were on Central Park West. Next morning, into the tunnel and popped out at Fort Tryon Park. Then back underground and we popped out next in Brooklyn. Magic tunnel.
BASICS: HOTEL AND FOOD
Hotel: the Excelsior. I found a rate of $94 a night on hotels.com. That was an offer I couldn’t refuse. We were very happy with the hotel. It’s on W. 81st, across from the Natural History Museum and just across Central Park from the Met. We loved being in a great neighborhood. We were given a Jr. Suite w/ no view and spent our first 2 nights there. Then we asked for a view and were moved to a room w/ a park view. Both rooms were lovely, spotless, comfortable and large. Service was professional. DD had a room on the same floor as ours.
Food: we mostly ate in ‘our’ neighborhood. The first night I was hungry from the great American Airlines fast and we ate at Kefi, a Greek restaurant. I’d made reservations about a week before we left. Food was delicious, good service. We had a great time visiting with the people at the table next to us, a wonderful reminder of how friendly New Yorkers are. That surprises us everwhere. We live in the Northwest where people are polite but tend to be reserved.
We had dinner twice at Bistro Citron, a typical French bistro just around the corner from the hotel. Great prices – main courses were about $22 a person plus wine. Delicious French bistro fare with great service. Very comfortable w/ comfort food.
We ate once at St. James’ pub – sandwiches and Guinness for dinner. DH really wanted to eat there…
Lunch: Grays Papaya, Grimaldi’s in Brooklyn, Angelo’s on W. 57th (I thought it beat Grimaldi’s in the pizza war), and a picnic from Zabar’s.
Snacks: we went to Levain’s bakery on West 74th 3 times for cookies. Yum. On Sunday I bought 2 as my dinner on the long flight to Seattle. It was a meal I didn’t regret. Bought zero cupcakes. Sadly, had no pretzel croissants but did have a pretzel. Bought bagels at H&H to take home to our son.
Breakfast: twice at EJ’s on Amsterdam at W 81st, twice at Manhattan Diner on Broadway at W 77th. Preferred Manhattan Diner for the great value, service and eavesdropping. Plus it opens earlier. And is close to Levain Bakery so just a little swing by for the world's best cookies...
MUSEUMS
We went to New York to see Museums and visit with our daughter and both were wonderful. What struck me about our museum visits on this trip was the attitudes of our fellow museum visitors. People all around us from kids on up seemed really thrilled to be looking at art! I didn’t see people trudging along checking off a ‘must-see’ list, but everywhere there were people rushing up to a painting happy to be there. A highlight was the 9-year old girl was calling out to her siblings “Oh look! it’s a Jackson Pollock painting! It’s really famous! Come look!”
The Cloisters.
Our first morning we took the subway up to the Cloisters. It was a beautiful cold morning with snow on the ground and the views and the museum were all wonderful. Especially enjoyed seeing the architecture there.
Brooklyn Museum of Art.
We made it out to Brooklyn and couldn’t resist the siren call of the Brooklyn Museum of Art! Fantastic exhibit of American Art. This place is a treasure and to me illustrated the wealth of art concentrated in New York City. As if the Met, the Whitney, the Guggenheim, the Frick, MOMA etc. aren’t enough, there’s BMA. In the interest of regional fairness, it should be transported to the Northwest. Just sayin.
The Met.
We went there twice. It makes me happy just to type that. We were focused on viewing the Stephen Hannock paintings but only one was on view. (1st floor, contemporary room.) It was amazing. I was surprised how much wonderful contemporary art had been purchased or donated in the three years since I’d been to the Met, including a work of ash on linen by a Chinese artist, Zhang Huan. Fascinating. I believe it was on the 2nd floor or the mezzanine of the contemporary art section.
We spent some time on the 2nd floor with the 13th – 18th century European paintings, Giotto, Raphael, Bruegel. We really love the Bruegel and now just need to see the one in Prague.
The paintings that normally hang in the American Wing are temporarily on display in a series of old funky glass cases while their rooms are being renovated. This was well worth tracking down and you may find yourself all alone in a room full of masterpieces. We did. Despite the difficulty of seeing George Inness’ glossy paintings hung above my head with bad lighting, it was fun to see all these gems in the cases. I bobbed up and down and sideways trying to find the sweet spot for viewing without reflections. It did save time having them all close together like that! Really enjoyed the Winslow Homers, the George Inness paintings, Sargent landscapes and Thomas Cole. There’s also a great landscape by Albert Ryder. The best part about the temporary set-up is I have to walk through the Egyptian rooms and the Temple of Dendur to get there. I love those rooms.
We spent careful time in the rooms of 19th century to early 20th century European paintings, from Camille Corot to Van Gogh. I am forever in awe of the wealthy Americans with the good sense to amass these treasures and bequeath them to all of us. What a gift.
Finally, the modern art rooms on the 1st floor are fantastic. The Marsden Hartley landscapes are stunning and there are several of Picasso’s very best. Many are grouped in an interesting way – by collection. Which means you’ll find that Picasso’s paintings aren’t together, but there’s one in nearly every collection, or every other room. It can feel a little disjointed at times but I find it interesting to see what people gathered together and then gave away.
The Met does an especially good job with the information they put next to the painting. For a period like pre to post Impressionism where so many artists knew and were influenced by each other, the small back stories are really interesting to read.
MOMA.
The three of us went there on Friday free night which is total fun madness. Lots of people. Actually, lots of French people! New York was full of French people while we were there. Started at the 5th floor with the café. We were a little tired so we had coffee/tea in the splendid café and then dove into the crowds on the 5th floor. The Matisse paintings must be the best in the world at the MOMA. However, I follow museum rules and was irritated by the constant flashing of cameras. The guards seemed not to really care. The Met has the same rule and I never saw a flash go off there. What is up with MOMA on this? But, the paintings are great and we loved the Picassos, the Matisse, an Edward Hopper, Joseph Cornell boxes, Motherwell, Rothko.
Guggenheim.
After the MOMA we realized we still had time to make it to the Friday free admission at the Guggenheim if we hurried. So we caught a bus heading up Madison Avenue which wasn’t exactly hurrying, as it turned out. But we made it in time. There is a nice temporary exhibit of Asian influence on American art. To us that was the highlight. The others - not so much. Loved the building, really love seeing art when you spiral up the building. They were setting up for Friday gallery night with beer and wine as we left but it was $25 and we had reservations at Bistro Citron. So we walked across the park to dinner.
ACTIVITIES
Brooklyn Heights.
DH and I spent half a sunny, cold day in Brooklyn. We started w/ lunch at Grimaldi’s, then followed the walking tour in the Michelin green guide. The esplanade was stunning and we really enjoyed the brownstones.
Brooklyn Bridge.
DH and I walked across just after sunset from Brooklyn to Manhattan. It was fantastic. This was when we first realized that the other tourists on the tourist trail with us were almost entirely French. Everyone we passed, except for a few Americans and 2 Germans, was speaking French. My theory is they’re the only ones who’d been sensible about money and able to take advantage of the rest of the world being on sale.
Circle Tour.
We went on this after our daughter joined us and it was fun! New York is beautiful and especially so from the water.
Flea Market.
We made it to the Sunday morning flea market on Columbus and 77th. This was a busy market and fun to see. Lots of creative things.
Neighborhoods
We spent a fair amount of time simply walking around the neighborhoods – the UWS, LES, Greenwich Village. We actually walked too much and our feet wore out!
Central Park
We walked across Central Park at least 6 times. That was one of the great benefits of staying at the Excelsior. It’s just right there. We had a picnic in the park the last day and watched all the people and the dogs. Two different passing retrievers took exceptional interest in our salami. One old retriever named Sophie was so interested in our lunch that she refused to continue her walk with her group of 3 women, and she was just too big for them to pull along. They wanted her to head north on the path but there we were, 30 feet away, on a bench with salami. Nope. Sophie leaned toward us staring with great sadness, big eyes and tail between her legs and just when they thought they’d persuaded Sophie to head north with them, she flopped down on the path still staring intently at us and looking even more forlorn. It was the funniest thing and we were all laughing. DH got up, walked to the owner’s friends, gave them salami and Sophie instantly jumped up and headed happily down the path with them. We all thought this was the funniest thing we’d seen.
That's it - thanks all for your help. We loved our trip, loved New York (again.)
We flew American Air from Seattle to JFK. All good but they no longer feed you on the plane. That was fine, just wish I’d known on the flight east – I was hungry.
We took the Air Train then the E subway into Manhattan, switched to the C heading uptown and voila, there we were. We took the subway or walked on this trip. Love subways and wish Seattle had one. DH had the funny notion that we were entering tunnels or worm holes for travel: we entered Sea-Tac airport and the next time we were out of our tunnel under the open sky, we were on Central Park West. Next morning, into the tunnel and popped out at Fort Tryon Park. Then back underground and we popped out next in Brooklyn. Magic tunnel.
BASICS: HOTEL AND FOOD
Hotel: the Excelsior. I found a rate of $94 a night on hotels.com. That was an offer I couldn’t refuse. We were very happy with the hotel. It’s on W. 81st, across from the Natural History Museum and just across Central Park from the Met. We loved being in a great neighborhood. We were given a Jr. Suite w/ no view and spent our first 2 nights there. Then we asked for a view and were moved to a room w/ a park view. Both rooms were lovely, spotless, comfortable and large. Service was professional. DD had a room on the same floor as ours.
Food: we mostly ate in ‘our’ neighborhood. The first night I was hungry from the great American Airlines fast and we ate at Kefi, a Greek restaurant. I’d made reservations about a week before we left. Food was delicious, good service. We had a great time visiting with the people at the table next to us, a wonderful reminder of how friendly New Yorkers are. That surprises us everwhere. We live in the Northwest where people are polite but tend to be reserved.
We had dinner twice at Bistro Citron, a typical French bistro just around the corner from the hotel. Great prices – main courses were about $22 a person plus wine. Delicious French bistro fare with great service. Very comfortable w/ comfort food.
We ate once at St. James’ pub – sandwiches and Guinness for dinner. DH really wanted to eat there…
Lunch: Grays Papaya, Grimaldi’s in Brooklyn, Angelo’s on W. 57th (I thought it beat Grimaldi’s in the pizza war), and a picnic from Zabar’s.
Snacks: we went to Levain’s bakery on West 74th 3 times for cookies. Yum. On Sunday I bought 2 as my dinner on the long flight to Seattle. It was a meal I didn’t regret. Bought zero cupcakes. Sadly, had no pretzel croissants but did have a pretzel. Bought bagels at H&H to take home to our son.
Breakfast: twice at EJ’s on Amsterdam at W 81st, twice at Manhattan Diner on Broadway at W 77th. Preferred Manhattan Diner for the great value, service and eavesdropping. Plus it opens earlier. And is close to Levain Bakery so just a little swing by for the world's best cookies...
MUSEUMS
We went to New York to see Museums and visit with our daughter and both were wonderful. What struck me about our museum visits on this trip was the attitudes of our fellow museum visitors. People all around us from kids on up seemed really thrilled to be looking at art! I didn’t see people trudging along checking off a ‘must-see’ list, but everywhere there were people rushing up to a painting happy to be there. A highlight was the 9-year old girl was calling out to her siblings “Oh look! it’s a Jackson Pollock painting! It’s really famous! Come look!”
The Cloisters.
Our first morning we took the subway up to the Cloisters. It was a beautiful cold morning with snow on the ground and the views and the museum were all wonderful. Especially enjoyed seeing the architecture there.
Brooklyn Museum of Art.
We made it out to Brooklyn and couldn’t resist the siren call of the Brooklyn Museum of Art! Fantastic exhibit of American Art. This place is a treasure and to me illustrated the wealth of art concentrated in New York City. As if the Met, the Whitney, the Guggenheim, the Frick, MOMA etc. aren’t enough, there’s BMA. In the interest of regional fairness, it should be transported to the Northwest. Just sayin.
The Met.
We went there twice. It makes me happy just to type that. We were focused on viewing the Stephen Hannock paintings but only one was on view. (1st floor, contemporary room.) It was amazing. I was surprised how much wonderful contemporary art had been purchased or donated in the three years since I’d been to the Met, including a work of ash on linen by a Chinese artist, Zhang Huan. Fascinating. I believe it was on the 2nd floor or the mezzanine of the contemporary art section.
We spent some time on the 2nd floor with the 13th – 18th century European paintings, Giotto, Raphael, Bruegel. We really love the Bruegel and now just need to see the one in Prague.
The paintings that normally hang in the American Wing are temporarily on display in a series of old funky glass cases while their rooms are being renovated. This was well worth tracking down and you may find yourself all alone in a room full of masterpieces. We did. Despite the difficulty of seeing George Inness’ glossy paintings hung above my head with bad lighting, it was fun to see all these gems in the cases. I bobbed up and down and sideways trying to find the sweet spot for viewing without reflections. It did save time having them all close together like that! Really enjoyed the Winslow Homers, the George Inness paintings, Sargent landscapes and Thomas Cole. There’s also a great landscape by Albert Ryder. The best part about the temporary set-up is I have to walk through the Egyptian rooms and the Temple of Dendur to get there. I love those rooms.
We spent careful time in the rooms of 19th century to early 20th century European paintings, from Camille Corot to Van Gogh. I am forever in awe of the wealthy Americans with the good sense to amass these treasures and bequeath them to all of us. What a gift.
Finally, the modern art rooms on the 1st floor are fantastic. The Marsden Hartley landscapes are stunning and there are several of Picasso’s very best. Many are grouped in an interesting way – by collection. Which means you’ll find that Picasso’s paintings aren’t together, but there’s one in nearly every collection, or every other room. It can feel a little disjointed at times but I find it interesting to see what people gathered together and then gave away.
The Met does an especially good job with the information they put next to the painting. For a period like pre to post Impressionism where so many artists knew and were influenced by each other, the small back stories are really interesting to read.
MOMA.
The three of us went there on Friday free night which is total fun madness. Lots of people. Actually, lots of French people! New York was full of French people while we were there. Started at the 5th floor with the café. We were a little tired so we had coffee/tea in the splendid café and then dove into the crowds on the 5th floor. The Matisse paintings must be the best in the world at the MOMA. However, I follow museum rules and was irritated by the constant flashing of cameras. The guards seemed not to really care. The Met has the same rule and I never saw a flash go off there. What is up with MOMA on this? But, the paintings are great and we loved the Picassos, the Matisse, an Edward Hopper, Joseph Cornell boxes, Motherwell, Rothko.
Guggenheim.
After the MOMA we realized we still had time to make it to the Friday free admission at the Guggenheim if we hurried. So we caught a bus heading up Madison Avenue which wasn’t exactly hurrying, as it turned out. But we made it in time. There is a nice temporary exhibit of Asian influence on American art. To us that was the highlight. The others - not so much. Loved the building, really love seeing art when you spiral up the building. They were setting up for Friday gallery night with beer and wine as we left but it was $25 and we had reservations at Bistro Citron. So we walked across the park to dinner.
ACTIVITIES
Brooklyn Heights.
DH and I spent half a sunny, cold day in Brooklyn. We started w/ lunch at Grimaldi’s, then followed the walking tour in the Michelin green guide. The esplanade was stunning and we really enjoyed the brownstones.
Brooklyn Bridge.
DH and I walked across just after sunset from Brooklyn to Manhattan. It was fantastic. This was when we first realized that the other tourists on the tourist trail with us were almost entirely French. Everyone we passed, except for a few Americans and 2 Germans, was speaking French. My theory is they’re the only ones who’d been sensible about money and able to take advantage of the rest of the world being on sale.
Circle Tour.
We went on this after our daughter joined us and it was fun! New York is beautiful and especially so from the water.
Flea Market.
We made it to the Sunday morning flea market on Columbus and 77th. This was a busy market and fun to see. Lots of creative things.
Neighborhoods
We spent a fair amount of time simply walking around the neighborhoods – the UWS, LES, Greenwich Village. We actually walked too much and our feet wore out!
Central Park
We walked across Central Park at least 6 times. That was one of the great benefits of staying at the Excelsior. It’s just right there. We had a picnic in the park the last day and watched all the people and the dogs. Two different passing retrievers took exceptional interest in our salami. One old retriever named Sophie was so interested in our lunch that she refused to continue her walk with her group of 3 women, and she was just too big for them to pull along. They wanted her to head north on the path but there we were, 30 feet away, on a bench with salami. Nope. Sophie leaned toward us staring with great sadness, big eyes and tail between her legs and just when they thought they’d persuaded Sophie to head north with them, she flopped down on the path still staring intently at us and looking even more forlorn. It was the funniest thing and we were all laughing. DH got up, walked to the owner’s friends, gave them salami and Sophie instantly jumped up and headed happily down the path with them. We all thought this was the funniest thing we’d seen.
That's it - thanks all for your help. We loved our trip, loved New York (again.)
Mar 11th, 2009, 03:59 AM
#5
Rosetravels, I feel the same way you do about the Met. I'm not a learned art or art history person--I really just like the museum, and always try to sneak in a visit whenever we're in NYC.
One possible reason there were so many French speaking folks in NYC is that much of Europe has been on winter break from school, and perhaps families took advantage of the exchange rate and airfare sales for a week across the pond. We just returned from Paris, and based on the language we heard, the week we were there seemed to be Italy's winter break.
One possible reason there were so many French speaking folks in NYC is that much of Europe has been on winter break from school, and perhaps families took advantage of the exchange rate and airfare sales for a week across the pond. We just returned from Paris, and based on the language we heard, the week we were there seemed to be Italy's winter break.
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