New York City Page 2

September 2012

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On Wednesday, we got together with Anne's friend Lisa. We met at Union Square by the statue of George Washington. The square provided a typical New York scene. There was someone with an oversized chess table; there was someone dancing with jerky exaggerated motion off beat to some songs being played. Overall, very entertaining. Plus there were some of many examples of public art that we saw this day. This is "Metronome", installed in 1999.

We headed down 14th street, and stopped at Our Lady of Guadalupe at St. Bernard's Church. The church has heavy doors, then an entry way, and then another set of heavy doors. By the time you are inside, you are a million miles away from the street noise.

From there, we continued to the cobblestone streets of the Meatpacking District (so called because once there were many butcher shops here). Street art was evident in many places. (Photo courtesy of Lisa.)

Here are Paul and Lisa at the entrance to High Line Park. The High Line is a former elevated railroad track that has been converted to a nice park. It even goes right through some buildings.

An example of some of the art that they have along the High Line is this little fellow (I'm added for scale) by artist Tomoaki Suzuki.

We had lunch at Chelsea Market, which contains a number of stores (mostly specialty groceries). It is in the building where Oreo Cookies were invented. We continued along the highline for a bit longer. Lisa took this picture of Paul and me on the park.

We thought this stacked parking garage was a great solution to a city problem. Each car is on a plate that is hydraulically raised or lowered, allowing multiple cards to be parked in the space normally occupied by one vehicle, without requiring a large building. The disadvantage of course would be having to wait for your car to be retrieved.

We saw this garage as we were getting off the High Line to explore some of the art galleries in the Chelsea area of Manhattan. We had never been to art galleries before, and were not positive what to expect. What ever we were expecting, however, was not what we got. In the first gallery we went in, we walked down a pitch black hall and in to a large room. In that room were 3 very large screens showing green hills and a fire. The gallery was Gagosian Gallery, and the exhibit was Douglas Gordon: The End of Civilization. The black hall was presumably to let our eyes adjust. This was actually a very enjoyable and relaxing exhibit, although we were baffled by the commercial viability of this art. (Each of these screens was the size of one at a movie theater.) From there we went in to Matthews Mark Galleries, where we saw some sculptures by Jackson Pollock and Tony Smith, many small photographs exploring contrast by Robert Adams, and a really really large black object by Tony Smith.

Most of the gallery entrances are very nondescript. For some, we almost walked right by the door. And of course there were many more galleries than what we actually went in to. In between the Matthew Mark Galleries was a store that was almost as interesting as the galleries. It had an egg shaped door; the displays inside were on stark white curved structures that created small rooms. And the employees were wearing very interesting clothing. A men's blazer was $1600. But they had these really fun men's shoes.

We also went in to D'Amelio Gallery, with an exhibit on Yayoi Kusama and on Monique van Genderen.

We went in to another Gagosian Gallery, this time featuring an artist covering popular figures by Richard Phillips. This exhibit also had video components, one of which was well done and the other of which was just annoying. Other galleries we went in to were Bruce Silverstein, (which had some nice Georgia O'Keefe among others), Fredericks and Freiser gallery, and the Hasted Kraeutler gallery .

One gallery (Hasted Krauetler) had some prices listed for some works ($120k, $250k). We thought about buying a few pieces, but it would have been difficult to carry them home. The last gallery we stopped in, the Taglialatella Gallery, seemed the most like what I had originally been expecting, with many more works, rather than vastly spaced out items. They had a number of Andy Warhol prints. In fact, their website states "Taglialatella Galleries is one of the most influential dealers of Andy Warhol artworks to date."

Although there were a lot of other galleries, at this point we decided to head back to the High Line, where we could see some more street art.

We saw a helpful sign in case we forgot which city we were in.

If you recall, as we walk along the High Line Park, we are going next to many buildings. Some of these buildings are commercial, but some have residences. One of the more entertaining sites along the way was a creative way one resident decided to keep his privacy.

That is, of course, a poster of some sort that he put in his window.

After our adventures with Lisa, we walked back to a Metro stop. We passed some interesting items along the way. One was Greeley Square, which we thought Matt's family might be interested in. Greeley coined the phrase "Go west, young man" according to the website entry. We also walked by the Empire State Building, which is a remarkably attractive building.

Diane and Frank were fabulous hosts for us, and one example is the nice appetizers that Diane put out for us. (It is a good thing that we walked a lot, because we certainly were fed well.) Today, Diane was running a little late, so she asked Frank to put out some snacks. Here is the fancy spread that Frank did for us.

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