Museums Continue to Surprise

Karen and I got off to an earlier than usual departure from Hudson yesterday and made it into Harlem by 11 am. After some pauses to chase the various children around, we went off to The Museum of the City of NY at 103rd and 5th Ave. It was a warm day so we had a great walk from 121st to the museum, though our winter coats soon became a burden.

At the museum, the Joel Meyerowitz series: LEGACY: THE PRESERVATION OF WILDERNESS IN NEW YORK CITY PARKS (Oct 9 through Mar 21) was good fun. The tapestry size reproductions hanging in the entrance hall are a great reflection of Meyerowitz’s use of a large format camera and the inkjet images on Tyvek. A couple of the images of large trees are worth a pause. Overall, the photography is at times a bit worn out in its approach to framing and selection of topics. Landscapes are such a thoroughly worked over topic that it is hard not to fall into patterns of visualization that produce images that seem a bit predictable if not trite. Nevertheless, I also learned that park space accounts for over 25% of the land area of NYC. Made me think of making more of an effort to get beyond my usual ventures to Marcus Garvey park (aka Mt. Morris Park) and Central Park. Here is a link to the official website of NYC parks where you can explore more about the city’s 1,700 parks.

You could hear the chuckles and laughter at our next exhibit stop well before entering,  CHARLES ADDAMS’S NEW YORK (Mar 4 through May 16). But, for me the highlight of our visit was the 26 minute video installation, TIMESCAPES: A MULTIMEDIA PORTRAIT OF NEW YORK (Ongoing), a multimedia portrait of New York City. This is a terrific video history of the development of NYC from 1609 to the last few years. For example, NY shippers innovated regularly scheduled “packet” ships that sailed to Europe and back. This greatly increased the flow of goods and people over the previous approach of a ship only sailing when it was full.

After a bit we walked down to the Asia Society at 70th and Park Ave to see artifacts from Vietnam,  Arts of Ancient Viet Nam: From River Plain to Open Sea through May 2, 2010. Glad to have gone and a good reminder of how slight my knowledge of the prt of the world. though I continue to be surprised that human history is quite literally still being uncovered. Some of the artifacts on display had only been unearthed in the last ten years.

Noah’s Basketball Game

We rounded out our day of activities with a basketball game, the championship game for a league that Noah plays in. The game was held at PS 6. The whole family was in attendance, Nyla, Mom and Dad and two sets of grandparents. Despite vigorous  coaching from the stands, Noah’s team was not quite up to the challenge. They lost. But, I was really impressed with the level of play. I am certain that I have never seen organized basketball for this age. I was expecting more of something like swarm soccer. One of the little side drama was the presence of Noah’s best friend, Ben Gross, on the opposing team. As you can tell from the picture, no egos seem to have been shattered nor over-inflated.