Museum of the Moving Image, Astoria

I have emerged from my freelance cocoon! And despite the snowflakes I saw this morning, I think spring is about to land in New York City. I’m not making any promises but I’m optimistic – it’s supposed to be sixty degrees on Friday.

I took a long weekend last week because my best friend came to visit for four days. She lives out in San Diego and was gratifyingly charmed to arrive early Saturday morning to Christmas-like snow. It melted quickly, and while it wasn’t exactly warm while she was here, it was pleasant enough that we managed to run around the city without worrying too much about the temperature.

So what did we do? Well, considering we’ve spent much of our friendship geeking out over musical theater together, we went to see three different musicals. I plan to tell you all about them in good time, because all three were great and worth seeing, but that’s for later.

For now, let me tell you about our outing to the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria. I’d been to the museum once before, with my family, when a video game exhibition was on view, but I don’t get to Queens often so I hadn’t been back. We decided to head over around lunchtime on Saturday, and after a lunch at the nearby Arepas Café, we got in line for the museum.

Note to self: Saturday is a busy day at the Museum of the Moving Image! We arrived around 2 and it took maybe fifteen minutes for us to get inside. Once inside, we headed straight for the Mad Men exhibit, which had just opened. It, too, had a line, but once we were inside we got a look at papers outlining the planning process for the show, going back years to when it was just an idea Matthew Weiner had. We saw a re-creation of the writers’ room, character sketches, and finally a number of costumes and props from the show, including even a few sets. I’ve only seen an episode or two of the show, but my friend is a fan, and I’m always fascinated by the creative process and the formation of stories, so I liked it a lot too. The exhibit runs through June 14, 2015.

We explored the rest of the museum – it’s small enough that you can see everything in a few hours. Some highlights: a wall of portraits of celebrities, memorabilia from TV shows and films, special props, even a small movie theater.

There’s a whole section devoted to the history of animation, and you can make these neat stop motion animations. My animation skills are… amateur, but still fun.

I loved seeing my childhood favorites, Charlie Horse, LAMB CHOP, and Hush Puppy!

The museum is open Wednesday through Sunday and stays open till 8 p.m. on Fridays. Admission is $12 for adults, $9 for students and seniors, and $6 for kids 3 to 12. I’ve yet to see a movie there, but it’s worth checking out what’s playing!

Have you been to the Museum of the Moving Image? What was your favorite part?

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Reading about New York

First posted March 19, 2014.

Most of the nonfiction I read falls into the memoir category, with an emphasis on travel. But one of my favorites is Anne Fadiman’s Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader, a book for book lovers. If you haven’t read it, buy it now. It’s short and you’ll read it so quickly you’ll wish it were longer. I’ve read it a couple times and love all of the essays, but one of my favorites is called “My Odd Shelf”.

It’s about Fadiman’s obsession with polar exploration and the collection of books she has built centering on it. You can read a little of it in this review, but the concept is a simple one: many of us voracious readers have a niche topic which fascinates us, one that the general population wouldn’t understand. I have a few of them – favorite authors that I’ve read almost everything by, girls’ mysteries stories with a focus on Nancy Drew and books about Nancy Drew, and fairy tales. But I’m starting to build a small collection which could be called “Books about NYC that I haven’t finished reading yet.” Not quite like Fadiman’s collection. Oh well.

The only book in this collection that I did finish is called My First New York: Early Adventures in the Big City, and I gave it away. It’s a collection of essays from New York Magazine by notables from all fields about what New York was like when they first arrived, whenever it was. I saw it on the ubiquitous New York tables at bookstores and museums and finally gave in and bought it. It was, like Ex Libris, a quick read, but a good one.

Another “saw it everywhere” purchase was New York Diaries: 1609 to 2009, edited by Teresa Carpenter, which offers snapshots of the history of this city in diary entries from New York residents throughout the city’s existence. I’ve dipped into it, but have yet to read more than 40 or so pages. What I’ve read, though, was fascinating!

When I graduated college I was given The Neighborhoods of Brooklyn as a gift. It traces the history of each section of the borough I’ve lived in since moving to New York, and while I’ve read up on some of the neighborhoods I’ve lived in, I have yet to read all of it.

Not strictly about New York, but my friend gave me a copy of To Marry an English Lord, the book that inspired “Downton Abbey”, and while I’ve only read about three-quarters of it, I was struck by how many of the American heiresses in it were from New York society, and by the portrait of that society it painted.

A book that is useful for this blog: the DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: New York City 2014, given to me by the fabulous Allie Singer. Once the weather’s a little nicer I’m going to use it to plan adventures in parts of the city I haven’t had the chance to explore yet.

On my to-be-purchased list: Museum: Behind the Scenes at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I’ve seen it in the Met bookstore (where else) and my fascination with museums means I will eventually get around to buying it.

What’s on your odd shelf? What books do you buy faster than you can read them? And what books about New York should I add to my read-eventually pile?

The Origami Tree at the American Museum of Natural History

First posted on November 26, 2013. Revised with current information. 

When my alarm went off this morning, I awoke to Light FM playing Christmas music—Transiberian Orchestra’s “Christmas Eve in Sarajevo”, to be exact. I groaned, partly because it felt too early for Christmas music, but mostly because I didn’t want to get up yet. It’d be hypocritical of me to really be annoyed when I was excited to realize one of my favorite new holiday traditions is about to start.

A few years ago I visited the American Museum of Natural History just after New Years, and on that visit I was introduced to the Origami Tree. For the last forty years, volunteers have folded hundreds of origami objects and used them to decorate a Christmas tree within the museum. In 2012 the tree featured various groups of animals—herds, flights, even a parliament of owls. Another year the tree honored the collections of the museum and had everything from dinosaurs to space shuttles. Last year there was an ode to poisons, because of an exhibition that was on.

I’ve always loved origami, though cranes, fortune tellers, boxes, cups, and really bad water lilies are the only things I can make without instructions in front of me. The origami pieces adorning the tree are works of art. Often there will be a volunteer nearby who is happy to talk about paper folding; one told me that the rounded heads of some of the animals were created by wetting the paper. The intricate details of the different objects, the delicacy the folds, and the perfection of the final products all fascinate me, and I’m sure I’ll be going to visit the tree for years to come, just to see what these artists come up with next.

Next Monday, November 24, is the first day this year’s tree was available for viewing. It’s located in the Grand Gallery on the first floor.  This year’s theme is Origami Night at the Museum, a reference to the movie Night at the Museum, and spotlights items and people (including Teddy Roosevelt!) that play roles in the movie. I haven’t been to visit yet, but I’ll be sure to make my way up there before January 11. If you’re in the city over Thanksgiving and want to kick off the holiday season without braving the Thanksgiving Day Parade, consider a trip to the American Museum of Natural History—and say hi to the dinosaurs for me while you’re there.

Now that you’ve heard one (of many) of mine, what are your favorite NYC holiday traditions?

Five Things to See at the American Museum of Natural History

I had friends in town this weekend and on their last morning here, we popped into the American Museum of Natural History. There are many, many things to see there (and many rooms I have yet to check out) but if you only have a limited time there, these are five spots I love. Remember that the admission price is technically pay-what-you-wish!

1. The Hall of Minerals – It hasn’t been renovated in years, because it looks exactly like it did when I was a small child and loved climbing up and down its carpeted steps, but the petrified wood is pretty awesome, as is the Hall of Gemstones where I like to play “which one do you want to take home with you” with the stones. Why yes, that amethyst would make a lovely ring!

2. The Hall of Meteorites – Conveniently located next to the Hall of Minerals, this hall is home to Ahnighito, a 34-ton piece of a meteorite. It was bigger than that before it fell into Earth’s atmosphere, and is apparently about 4.5 million years old. The coolest part? Where it’s been broken or cut open, it shows a pattern not seen on iron that formed on earth. Also, its support stand had to be designed to reach all the way down to the bedrock under the museum because of how heavy the meteorite is.

3. The subway station at 81^st Street – Okay, I know this isn’t inside the museum, but the subway stop that serves the AMNH has these awesome mosaics of animals and fossils. The lower level is underwater-themed!

4. The gift shop – I should probably stick to exhibits (the dinosaurs are pretty awesome, go check them out too, and the giant sloth skeleton!), but I do have to say that the multi-floor gift shop is one of my favorite gift shops in the city. I can’t look at the bookstore section for too long or I’ll want to buy one, and they have all kinds of unique gifts, from ornaments and jewelry to dishes and neat decorative items.

5. The Hall of Ocean Life – No visit to the Natural History Museum would be complete without a trip to see the blue whale, but have you all been down to the dark corner under the whale? Go down the steps and find the one exhibit that isn’t lit. Bring your camera and you might just get a photo like the one below…

What’s your favorite bit of the AMNH?

 

 

Manhattan Day Out: A walking itinerary

Tourist season is upon us. If you live in NYC, that means you’ll soon have friends and relatives coming in for the weekend and sleeping on your couch. Some of them have spent time in New York and just want to see you, but I guarantee you’ll have at least one visitor per year who hasn’t visited before – and if you don’t live in New York and are reading this, that visitor might be you.

You can always go back through back entries of this blog when looking for ideas (check out my “things to do” tag!). But in this post and a few others, I’ll outline some sample itineraries for a weekend day with friends who want to explore the city. Because most of my visitors are twenty-somethings on a budget, most of my suggestions are free – though there are a lot of stores are on this itinerary, so remember to bring enough money for some small souvenirs! If you’re looking for something to do on a Friday evening, swing by the free hours at the Morgan Library & Museum. Grab some finger food at their café or have some sandwiches at the Pret around the corner before heading to bed early to rest up for a busy Saturday!

Note: This particular itinerary involves a LOT of walking, so it’s best attempted on a nice day. Wear comfortable shoes, weather-appropriate clothing, pack lightly, and bring a water bottle.

Get an early start on Saturday with coffee and a bagel, then hop on the subway and head to the museum of your choice! Most open at 10 a.m. I’d suggest starting at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (be sure to check out the roof garden! And I love the period rooms!) or the American Museum of Natural History (the dinosaurs, the giant meteorite, and the blue whale are all must-sees). Both are pay-what-you-wish, so don’t feel pressured into paying full-price. They’re also both conveniently located on Central Park.

After a few hours at the museum, you’ll likely be hungry! Museum cafeterias are often over-priced but convenient. If you’re looking for something more reasonable and quick, you should be able to find a deli or a pizza place nearby without too much trouble, especially if you walk a few blocks away. The Shake Shack near the Natural History Museum is delicious, but very crowded during peak hours.

Another option is to walk into Central Park and get a hot dog from a hot dog stand – a little risky sometimes, but they can be delicious! Whatever you do, wander into the park after lunch. There are maps scattered throughout, but if you walk more or less south from either museum you’ll have a nice ramble and you’ll eventually end up at the bottom of the park.

Aim for the southeast corner, where you can visit the famous toy store FAO Schwarz and indulge your inner child – and walk by the Plaza Hotel and indulge your inner Eloise. From there, wander south on Madison Ave and enjoy the window-shopping. When you reach 51^st street, head west and south on 5^th Ave so you can take a look at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

Walk a block and half south on 5^th Ave and head west into Rockefeller Center, where you can peek at where the Today Show is filmed, or visit the NBC Experience and Top of the Rock (neither of which I’ve done). For a free (unless you buy anything!) experience, check out the NBC Store, Nintendo World, the LEGO Store, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art store.  Other nearby destinations: Radio City Musical Hall, Magnolia Bakery, and American Girl Place.

From Rockefeller Center, wander south five blocks to 42^ndStreet, where you can check out the New York Public Library and Bryant Park, two of my favorite places (and two great bathrooms). If your feet aren’t too tired, wander a few blocks east to see the gorgeous constellation ceiling at Grand Central Terminal, or bravely trek a few blocks west to visit Times Square. If you’re in the mood, see how long the TKTS line is and get some theater tickets.

If you or your guests aren’t  theater-crazed, you’re probably getting hungry again. Hop a train down to SoHo to grab dinner at my favorite restaurant, Il Corallo. From there, hit up one of my favorite cupcake places in the neighborhood or take a walk or subway ride back up Broadway to Union Square and check out a few bookstores before taking your tired-but-happy self home to gear up for another day’s outing.

Anyone have suggestions for other stops along this route?

Here’s a map with most of the places mentioned above marked. The straight lines are routes I’ve suggested walking, while the squiggly one is the subway ride to Il Corallo. Enjoy!

Reading about New York

Most of the nonfiction I read falls into the memoir category, with an emphasis on travel. But one of my favorites is Anne Fadiman’s Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader, a book for book lovers. If you haven’t read it, buy it now. It’s short and you’ll read it so quickly you’ll wish it were longer. I’ve read it a couple times and love all of the essays, but one of my favorites is called “My Odd Shelf”.

It’s about Fadiman’s obsession with polar exploration and the collection of books she has built centering on it. You can read a little of it in this review, but the concept is a simple one: many of us voracious readers have a niche topic which fascinates us, one that the general population wouldn’t understand. I have a few of them – favorite authors that I’ve read almost everything by, girls’ mysteries stories with a focus on Nancy Drew and books about Nancy Drew, and fairy tales. But I’m starting to build a small collection which could be called “Books about NYC that I haven’t finished reading yet.” Not quite like Fadiman’s collection. Oh well.

The only book in this collection that I did finish is called My First New York: Early Adventures in the Big City, and I gave it away. It’s a collection of essays from New York Magazine by notables from all fields about what New York was like when they first arrived, whenever it was. I saw it on the ubiquitous New York tables at bookstores and museums and finally gave in and bought it. It was, like Ex Libris, a quick read, but a good one.

Another “saw it everywhere” purchase was New York Diaries: 1609 to 2009, edited by Teresa Carpenter, which offers snapshots of the history of this city in diary entries from New York residents throughout the city’s existence. I’ve dipped into it, but have yet to read more than 40 or so pages. What I’ve read, though, was fascinating!

When I graduated college I was given The Neighborhoods of Brooklyn as a gift. It traces the history of each section of the borough I’ve lived in since moving to New York, and while I’ve read up on some of the neighborhoods I’ve lived in, I have yet to read all of it.

Not strictly about New York, but my friend gave me a copy of To Marry an English Lord, the book that inspired “Downton Abbey”, and while I’ve only read about three-quarters of it, I was struck by how many of the American heiresses in it were from New York society, and by the portrait of that society it painted.

A book that should be useful for this blog: the DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: New York City 2014, given to me by the fabulous Allie Singer. Once the weather’s a little nicer I’m going to use it to plan adventures in parts of the city I haven’t had the chance to explore yet.

On my to-be-purchased list: Museum: Behind the Scenes at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I’ve seen it in the Met bookstore (where else) and my fascination with museums means I will eventually get around to buying it.

What’s on your odd shelf? What books do you buy faster than you can read them? And what books about New York should I add to my read-eventually pile?

The Little Prince at the Morgan Library

Last Friday I made my second-ever visit to the Morgan Library & Museum. The Morgan, which began as the private library of Pierpont Morgan, father of J.P Morgan, is now a complex of buildings that houses rare books and materials, and even includes a performance space. Admission is a bit pricey, but it’s free on Friday nights between 7 and 9 p.m., and when I was there they had a pair of musicians playing in the courtyard, near the café.

The Morgan’s permanent collection is impressive, but I also just love the building. The library portion reminds me of a small scale version of the Beauty and the Beast library, and it even has a (locked) doorway hidden by a bookcase, which a security guard pointed out on my first visit. This time I gleefully noticed an image of a dragon on the fireplace, above where the flames would be. And you could spend an hour just reading the spines on the shelves, not to say anything of the fine pieces of literature and history showcased in the library.

All this is to say that the Morgan is worth a visit at any time, but I especially urge to go now, before April 27, while the exhibit “The Little Prince: A New York Story” is on view. If you haven’t read The Little Prince, go buy a copy and read it, and then go to the exhibit.

The Little Prince, written by French aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and published in the US in 1943 simultaneously in English and French, is one of my favorite books. I have a lot of favorites, but this is one that I’ve read many times. It’s one of the books that grows with you, even though (and maybe because) part of its message is a reminder not to become a grown up. Grown ups, as the book tells us, are very strange, and are preoccupied so much with things that don’t matter that the things that do matter pass them by. Grown ups get caught up in worrying about money, or status, forgetting that, as the fox tells the little prince, “One sees clearly only with the heart. What is essential is invisible to the eye.”

In her book about faith and art, Walking on Water, Madeleine L’Engle refers to one of my favorite parts of The Little Princewhen discussing how children, when creating art, are free from self-consciousness. She says, “They don’t worry that they may not be as good as Di Chirico or Bracque; they know intuitively that it is folly to make comparisons, and they go ahead and say what they want to say. What looks like a hat to a grownup may, to the child artist, be an elephant inside a boa constrictor.” Like Saint-Exupéry, I’m fairly confident that if I show someone his picture of a boa that has eaten an elephant and he or she knows exactly what it is, we will be able to talk about the things that are really important.

The Morgan exhibit highlights that while Saint-Exupéry wrote about the child’s ability to see to the heart of things and to understand more than grown ups, he was not content to toss  his words and pictures on a piece of paper and trust to his readers to understand his message. His first draft of The Little Prince was over twice as long as the 14,000 word final book, and the exhibit takes us through some of the passages and images which existed only in early versions. We follow the narrative, seeing as Saint-Exupéry writes and edits and streamlines and focuses his message until he’s honed it into the story loved around the world.  Did you know The Little Prince has been translated into more languages than any other work of fiction? I didn’t, until Friday.

There are interesting bits about Saint-Exupéry and the book throughout the exhibit, from the writing in the book while Saint-Exupéry lived in New York City, to his subsequent disappearance after an aircraft mission in the south of France the year after the book was published. The biographical details are fascinating, especially when seen in context with the story’s message of loss and longing, but it was the manuscript that really drew me. How hard he must have worked to choose those 14,000 perfect words!

If you can, visit the Morgan in the next three months and see the exhibit. Be sure to notice the beautiful blue walls of the exhibition room, with their simple recreations of images from the book—including the one that Saint-Exupéry calls the “loveliest and saddest landscape in the world.” After you go, I promise you that you’ll want to read the book again.

Have you been to the Morgan? Or will The Little Prince convince you to go?

At the New York Hall of Science

For my next entry in what may become a series on museums that are easier to visit when you have a car, I’d like to present the New York Hall of Science. We’re coming up on a holiday weekend, you probably have spare time on your hands, so why not check out New York’s less well known science museum? And if you arrive on a Sunday, from September through June, between 10 and 11 a.m., admission is free.

…This is the point that I remind you again that visiting with a car is the way to go, unless you live in Queens. Shoutout to my friends Val and Jackie, who drove down to visit me last winter and were happy to be up and about early on a Sunday to go do fun science things.

I love the American Museum of Natural History, but I have one quarrel with it: not enough interactive exhibits. I love to read, but put me in a museum with just things to look at and read and nothing to touch, and I will wander around aimlessly, letting my eyes glaze over. Okay, this is only somewhat true, but definitely truer than I usually admit to anyone.

So when I heard about the New York Hall of Science, which has interactive exhibits about engineering, the environment, sports, space, and more, I knew it’d be a perfect  place to take Val (an astrophysics PhD candidate) and Jackie (BS in meteorology). And it was! We wandered the museum for most of the morning, trying not to trample any of the many, many kids who were also taking advantage of the free admission.

We did not, unfortunately, get to check out the Science Playground (!) as I don’t think it’s open year-round, but I’ll definitely be going back to learn about the “scientific principles of motion, balance, sound, sight and simple machines” through awesome playground equipment. I did take this cool picture of myself in a fun house mirror, in which you can’t see me even though I’m standing there facing the mirror.

You can visit some of the rockets and spaceships from the early days of the space race, brought there for the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair.

Conveniently located near the Queens Museum and Flushing Meadows (home to the US Open), the New York Hall of Science is worth a visit, with or without kids—but definitely with friends (don’t be a creeper!). Where else can you use a microscope to inspect the germs on your hands, or learn about physics while testing out your throwing arm?

Has anyone else been to the New York Hall of Science? What were your favorite exhibits?

Why Children’s Books Matter at the New York Public Library

I am fairly certain that I have taken almost every person who has visited me since I moved to NYC to the main branch New York Public Library, also known as the Stephen A. Schwarzman building. My reasons are simple: It’s in a great location near other tourist outings (Bryant Park, Grand Central, Rockefeller Center, and Times Square are all nearby), I love libraries and this is a particularly beautiful one, and, of course, it’s free.

Someday I want to bring my laptop or a notebook and do some writing in the Rose Main Reading Room, but so far my visits are limited to showing that gorgeous space off to out-of-town visitors. We take a quick lap around, staying quiet so as not to disrupt the many people who do use the library as a work space.

Besides a moment to say hit to Patience and Fortitude, the lions outside the library, and a peek in the gift shop, the other main stop on my tour is the children’s room on the ground floor. It houses a circulating collection of children’s books, and it’s also usually home to the original stuffed animal that inspired the Winnie the Pooh books.

I say usually because right now Christopher Robin’s beloved friends are on the main floor of the library as part of a special exhibit, ongoing until March 23, 2014, called “The ABC of It: Why Children’s Books Matter”. I’ve mentioned the exhibit before, but I went back for my second visit in December and I have to say, you should go! As someone who thinks about kids’ books on a daily basis (and gets paid for it!), I was familiar with a lot of the books discussed, but not all of them, and I highly enjoyed both of my visits.

Some of my favorite bits were a model of the car from The Phantom Tollbooth (a book I didn’t read until college), an Alice who “grows” (with the help of some books), and the original letter written by Edward Stratmeyer to Mildred Wirt Benson outlining the new girls’ series he wanted her to write the first books of under the name of Carolyn Keene — the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories.

While that last one is probably not as exciting to anyone else as it is to me, there are many other bits and pieces relating to well-known children’s books that will be fascinating to people who loved them, and at the least nostalgia-inducing for everyone else. There is also a great section on banned books, with a display of the titles of many books that have been banned and a discussion of the reasons some censors have given for banning them.

I could go on and tell you more about why children’s books matter, but that’s what the exhibit’s for! Have you visited already? What did you think?

The Origami Tree at the American Museum of Natural History

When my alarm went off this morning, I awoke to Light FM playing Christmas music—Transiberian Orchestra’s “Christmas Eve in Sarajevo”, to be exact. I groaned, partly because it felt too early for Christmas music, but mostly because I didn’t want to get up yet. It’d be hypocritical of me to really be annoyed when I was excited to realize one of my favorite new holiday traditions kicked off today.

A few years ago I visited the American Museum of Natural History just after New Years, and on that visit I was introduced to the Origami Tree. For the last forty years, volunteers have folded hundreds of origami objects and used them to decorate a Christmas tree within the museum. Last year the tree featured various groups of animals—herds, flights, even a parliament of owls. Another year the tree honored the collections of the museum and had everything from dinosaurs to space shuttles.

I’ve always loved origami, though cranes, fortune tellers, boxes, cups, and really bad water lilies are the only things I can make without instructions in front of me. The origami pieces adorning the tree are works of art. Often there will be a volunteer nearby who is happy to talk about paper folding; one told me that the rounded heads of some of the animals were created by wetting the paper. The intricate details of the different objects, the delicacy the folds, and the perfection of the final products all fascinate me, and I’m sure I’ll be going to visit the tree for years to come, just to see what these artists come up with next.

Today was the first day this year’s tree was available for viewing. It’s located in the Grand Gallery on the first floor. According to the museum’s website, the theme is Wicked, Wild, and Wonderful, a reference to a new exhibit called The Power of Poison. I haven’t been to visit yet, but I’ll be sure to make my way up there before January 12. If you’re in the city this weekend and want to kick off the Christmas season without braving the Thanksgiving Day Parade, consider a trip to the American Museum of Natural History—and say hi to the dinosaurs for me while you’re there.

Now that you’ve heard one (of many) of mine, what are your favorite NYC holiday traditions?

ETA: On December 8, I went to see the tree! Here are some photos.