This past Wednesday Susie and I took the 6:30am Peter Pan bus to America's own peculiar version of Never, Never Land: New York City. The motivation for the day trip was to see the French Impressionists at the Met, especially Degas and Manet. We also hoped to stroll Fifth Avenue and check out the lights and windows in the bargain.
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| Times Square - ready for New Year's Eve |
We arrived in Gotham a little after 10am and upon leaving the Port Authority bus terminal plunged into the wilds of 42nd Street and Times Square, that latter being mostly closed off for the upcoming New Year celebration.
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| Late afternoon, Rockefeller Plaza |
We then headed in the direction of Fifth Avenue and soon found ourselves enmeshed in a throng of what appeared to be thousands of Europeans looking to have their pictures taken in front of Rockefeller Plaza. I suspect some of those people are still waiting in line to get onto the skating rink:
Anyway, we strolled up Fifth Avenue past one designer store after another, paying our respects to the most outrageous of American consumerism. After passing the Plaza Hotel and keeping both FAO Schwarz and the Apple Store at a safe distance on our right we headed into peace and tranquility of Central Park. We stayed on the eastern side of the park until we reached the Metropolitan Museum of Art, although we did stop and say hi to "Alice" and her friends along the way. . .
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| Central Park |
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| Alice in Wonderland and friends, Central Park |
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| Standing in line to get into the Metropolitan Museum of Art |
Apparently all those tourists we passed through at Rockefeller Plaza had beat us to the Met -- we had to wait about 20 minutes or so to get inside the building, pass through security and then more than a half hour in line to get tickets. The place was, in a word, packed. Using the handy map we found our way to the second floor (rooms in the 800s) -- although curiously the stairs were all cordoned off and every had to take elevators. Odd, we thought. (And of course, there were long lines of women waiting to use the bathrooms. What's up with that anyway? Why don't they simply double the size of women's restrooms?)
But it was a wonderful experience. We got the chance to spend a few choice minutes with some of the world's greatest art -- how cool is that, eh?
Anyway, one young woman who wasn't waiting for the loo was, however, waiting to be seen -- Faustine Leo, cousin of the painter Karl-Heinrich Lehmann who, coincidentally, painted her portrait when she was just 10 years old in 1842:
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| "Faustine Leo (1832-1865," by Karl-Heinrich Lehmann (her cousin), 1842 |
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| "The Little Dancer" by Edgar Degas |
This is now the 3rd copy we have seen out of, I believe, 14 copies worldwide, of Degas' "Little Dancer." (The other two were in the Musee d'Orsay in Paris and The Clark in Williamstown, MA.)
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| That's Victorine Merine dressed as a matador in the far center painting, right by the arched entryway |
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"Young Lady in 1866" by Edouard Manet;
that's Victorine Meurine, again; she would also pose in Manet's scandalous work, "Olympia" |
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| "Saint-Philippe du Roule" by Jean Beraud - I swear the woman holding the little girl's hand was staring right at me |
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| "Fishing," 1862-63, by Edouard Manet |
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| "The Monet Family in their garden at Argenteuil," 1874 by Edouard Manet |
After leaving the Met we bundled up before heading out into the biting wind. Once outside we thought, "hey, let's cross Central Park to the west side." In fact, we got lost a few minutes later in that part of the park known as "The Ramble" -- which is exactly what we did for about a half hour or so until we found our way out again. What a place, though! sculptures seemed to abound everywhere we turned -- we saw busts of Schiller, Beethoven and even Victor Herbert, all seemingly scattered around with no rhyme or reason.
As we were about to pass out of the park onto Central Park West I caught sight of this statue put up in honor of the men of the Seventh Regiment (presumably from New York) who died in service of the Union during the American Civil War.
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| Memorial to the Seventh Regiment, Central Park |
And just at the corner of the park where Broadway crosses Central Park West and 59th Street, where the park joins Columbus Circle is this incredible memorial to the dead from the USS Maine.
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| Memorial to the dead from the USS Maine, Central Park, Columbus Circle |
As we passed the Maine memorial and walked along 59th Street we recalled with fondness the grand times we had in this neighborhood quite a few years ago -- and thought to seek out a restaurant somewhere in the area that we had remembered being quite good. All we could remember was that the name began with "Red". . . And sure enough as we turned off of 59th down 7th Avenue, after about a block and a half we came to the "Redeye Cafe."
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| Redeye Cafe on 7th Avenue, just south of Central Park |
We found a quiet booth near the front overlooking 7th Avenue, and enjoyed a wonderful late and leisurely lunch sitting in front of a spectacular Peter Max painting.  |
| Peter Max painting in back of our table at the Redeye |
Leaving the restaurant we cut back over to Fifth Avenue where we hoped to get a glimpse of the holiday windows and lights. As we walked south we found the holiday decorations rather disappointing. The windows all seemed so pedestrian and lifeless, at least compared to past years when we've strolled through this part of Never, Never Land. No lost boys, no Wendy, no excitement -- just thousands of tourists, cheek-by-jowl, each one with a handy-dandy little digital camera fused to the palm of each hand, snapping off photos in the twilight. Even when we sought escape inside Lord & Taylor, the hordes passed through with us -- but the decorations were nicer to be sure:
Our time here was at an end and we headed back to find our bus. No sooner had we returned to the Port Authority and found our gate than we learned that Peter Pan had overbooked the one-day excursion fares it was offering on its website (the reason we took the bus in the first place). But the company did the right thing -- it had no choice, I suppose -- and arranged for an additional bus to make sure everyone got back to Providence. In fact, not long after we got to the gate, we got aboard and tucked ourselves into two seats as the bus pulled out into commuter traffic some 45 minutes early.
I found myself gazing out of the window, relishing not having to drive through snarling New York traffic and find my way off Manhattan Island in the dark, watching hypnotically as the lights of the Great City come on. we sped north up through Harlem, over the Triboro Bridge and eventually onto I-95 pointed north to Rubetown, capital of Gritworld (where the state motto was recently changed from "Creatively stealing your money since 1639" to "making a bad situation worse").
Funny thing, though. With all of our walking up and down some of the fanciest parts of the Big Apple we didn't come across one pastry shop, nor one bakery. And
that seems explains so many things, we thought. . . . so many things.
Have a wonderful New Year!
