History – Walk with Me, Too

Museum of the City of New York

When you tell people you plan a visit to the Museum of the City of New York, they usually have a positive response.

So [who can resist] a chance to enjoy tea [and crumpets?] with a curator …

From my blog, All the Best

There will be a Curator’s Cup on January 22nd with Lilly Tuttle. (It’s sold out.)

One of the exhibits she will discuss is called Art Deco City, 1920s New York, shown off in postcards. (Closes Feb 17.)

The Stettheimer Dollhouse has long been a highlight at MCNY. It is the creation of one of the Stettheimer sisters, which showcases a post- WW1 New York and is a memento of their Tarrytown estate, Andre Brook.

MCNY is at the top of Museum Mile. Come visit.

It’s a quiet, delightful destination.

Don’t take just my word for it. Phyllis McGinley, 1961 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, found it endearing.

The poem, Ode to an Institution, was published in The New Yorker in 1953. (The link takes you to MCNY’s Instagram where I recommend you read it! It’s artful and artless.)

Rows

A row of rowhouses that are this intact is a rare sighting. This one is particularly nice.

Rows in a variety of configurations on the UES, many of them disrupted by renovation.

It’s a felony

Everything is relative. Language like law has been corrupted and watered down. A felony used to sound like a serious threat and a real deterrent.

Now, it takes 34 of them to help raise some serious campaign loot.

Mixed media

New York City provides an array of building styles spanning our long history. It leads the way to photo ops that can highlight what was or what is or now and then together.

Contrasts

Modern recreations of the single family brownstone sit side by side with renovated originals.

East 69th between 2nd and 1st is a classic block

Contrasting

The old townhouse looks like the new skyrise is spouting from its roof. Its stone-fronted neighbor stoically looks on.

There’s no way of telling what The Wren looked like prior to its conversion into a dwelling of distinction. I want to guess it had been a garage.

Every block is a study in contrasts. Old and new, transformed and reformed.

My “water tower” collection

Some people like myself are partial to the water tower. It tops buildings of a certain size and build.

I have referenced them before:

https://sidewalksuperblog.wordpress.com/2018/07/12/whats-that-up-in-the-sky/

http://mycity.design.blog/2022/07/30/briefly/

http://mycity.design.blog/2023/04/20/2423/

https://sidewalksuperblog.wordpress.com/2020/01/30/wanderlust/

Sadly, too

Unprincipled men (and women) take advantage of the chaos that they themselves create to lead us to our own destruction.

They create nothing but the paving stones of political unrest; these stones pave the road that leads us to autocracy.

We walk this road when we allow politicians to disrupt our civic unions and break the rules we made as a nation of the free and wreak chaos in public institutions.

Democracy is imperiled. We need to walk the road that will keep it strong.

American democracy needs us to stay on the straight and narrow.

Old stomping grounds

My home is

What do you love about where you live?

It’s a long list, that one that answers your question about what I love about where I live. Got some time?

The river is at my door;
There’s a playground less than a block in the other direction;
Convenience is on my corner: drugstores, groceries; coffee joints; restaurants;
There is also a school, a library, a barber, and a cleaner, all a short walk away;
Quirky stores that are original to my neighborhood;
My friends and neighbors;
And the person I love lives with me, too;
Buses and subways to take me in every direction.