Concrete Jungle Where Dreams are Made Of: Our NYC Adventure, Part 3
7. Frick
Again, another art museum Nyu had never visited! The Frick is an old house converted into a museum and is amazingly beautiful in its own right. Then you add the paintings to the equation, including a very impressive set by the Dutch masters (I might be a Rembrandt whore, hah, therefore this fact is very important to me.) The museum usually has a bunch of Rembrandts on display, his self portrait in their collection is one of my faves. However they were preparing for a massive Rembrandt exhibit, to be unveiled soon, so therefore they were not on display, boo. But they DID have a nice exhibit of watercolors/washes done by Spanish masters, including a hefty amount by my boy Goya, so it was all good. (And I totes bought the artbook of the Spanish exhibit to take with me, hah. Yay me.) The Fragonard room is one of my faves; I've never been a huge Rococo fan, but having that many paintings in that style in one space, nestled in with the furniture and accents scattered throughout the room, creates an almost magical atmosphere. You can see a virtual tour of the Fragonard room here: http://www.frick.org/virtual/fragonard.htm
8. Flatiron Building
So I have been to NYC what, roughly a dozen times in my life? And I had yet to see the Flatiron building with my own eyes; sheer madness. I decided this blasphemy could no longer stand, and so during our last afternoon in the city, when Nyu was having lunch with a friend and I had some time to kill by my lonesome, I skipped off and went to end my architectural ignorance.
I got out of the subway and walked to the intersection nearby, where it should be, and saw no sign of it. How do you lost a skyscraper, of all things? Then I looked up and went ahhhhh, that is because I was NEXT to it, hah. (I am such a smart one, let me tell you.) So I walked out to the large open space in the middle of the nearby intersection, waiting until I could properly turn around to get the full effect, and looked. And I gasped, literally gasped. Because the Flatiron is a thing of beauty; a wedge of grace reaching up to the heavens that looks so elegant and light, as if a strong gust will blow it away, yet simultaneously solid and sure. So beautiful.
The details on the facade are stunning; this beauty was made back when things were done right.
Here is the back of it, if you are curious (I was, no one ever photographs the back, hah.)
9. City Shopping
The nice thing about being in the city around the holidays is that you get to see everything dolled up at its best. This goes double for stores, where they need to be extra attractive to draw you in. The midtown department store windows are the stuff of legend; and, as we found when we perused the windows of Bergdorf Goodman, this legend is all fact. And fabulous.
This griffin was completely made out of paper. BEAUTIFUL.
Also I went to the apple store, and I would not mention this except it was so cool. So I am in the store-getting a new wireless mouse so I can do work stuff while on vacay because I hate the track pad on my laptop-and as I am buying my shiny new mouse I hand the cashier guy my debit card. He looks at it and is like, oh, mountains, and I mention I'm from Utah. He is like oh, I performed in Utah! He had done a traveling Broadway show there, and mentioned my town and the name of the show he was in. And I am all hey, I SAW that producion! I totally remember you, you were fantastic! And he was; the part he played is meant to be one dimensional and comical, and he knocked it out of the park, he was hysterical. And he was so flattered I remembered him in the show, it was so cute. He said he was taking a break from acting for a bit and got a job at the Apple store for the holidays. So, people, you never know where you will find a starving actor; they might be the mld mannered man helping you buy an overpriced Apple product. Never forget this. It was a total genius moment.
A shot from the Apple store elevator (because I take pictures EVERYWHERE, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. (Hah, like you don't know.)
ON TO PART 4 (the last one hooray!): http://reezoo.livejournal.com/14099.html