Statue of Liberty
Statue of Liberty. Symbol of the American value of freedom for all. A gift from France. “Thanks for all your help.” That’s probably what the card said. The one attached to the Statue of liberty. When they delivered it to America.
You actually take a ferry to the Statue of Liberty. The ride itself is fun and they make sure to give you a nice view from all around the statue. They give you a good look.
When you arrive on the island, you can walk around the park and get a close up view of the massive monument. I’m not sure how large but, probably the pinkie toe of the statue would be about the size of about 30 men? Does that sound right?
Imperial measurements are weird.
Ellis Island
A short ferry ride over from the Statue of Liberty is Ellis Island. Ellis Island is the place immigrants coming to America stopped to be processed for entry.
At the museum, we watched a film with actual footage of Ellis Island immigrants. The film wasn’t about the first class ticketholders though. It was about the ones coming over on boats with barely any money at all, many trying to escape starvation and poverty, hoping to come to a land where financial opportunity abounded.
I would say more about it but I fell asleep about 3 minutes in.
Central Park
Get this: buildings that seem to be a mile high into the clouds, and yet, surrounded on all sides, in the middle of this island of steel giants, is a lush, green park full of trees and walkable trails. And when my husband and I were there in fall, it was a mosaic of orange, red, brown, and yellow leaves dotting the atmosphere.
And if you’re lucky, on any given day, you could get a cool, refreshing Snapple peach tea from a falafel stand for $8.
Metropolitan Museum of Art
If you like thin, delicate gold coins and jewelry from like, 1000 BC, you’d be right at home in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. My husband and I saw a brittle book, it was a giant bible written by Christian monks. And I think it said it was written in 1000 BC too. I would be a terrible curator. I’d just lie and tell everyone everything’s from 1000 BC because I don’t remember the real date.
The other artifact that stood out to me is a giant temple they housed inside the museum. I mean under a roof. Inside the temple is a broken statue.
I watched a movie projected onto the temple to show what it looked like before the paint had eroded with time from the statue’s surface. The temple used to be painted with bright colors. We forget that all this ancient art was painted at one point in all kind of colors, some of which would look kind of strange to us, because we are so used to seeing gray statues without paint on them, in museums.
So that’s just something to think about.
Times Square
I have been to New York one other time, about 20 years ago. I was 16 years old or so. Maybe 17. Could have been 15 too. Something around that age. I went with my high school and I remember seeing Times Square for the first time. I recall it was very bright with a lot of flashing billboards for large corporations like McDonald’s. My impression was that it was very busy and smaller than it seems on TV.
It was kind of like, if capitalism discovered how to use a strobe light on a disco ball.
Fast forward now 20 years, I’m going through the same place in Times Square, and I was surprised that it was less bright and flashing than I remembered. And this time there’s way more little tourist trinkets: sunglasses in a rainbow of options, watches, little photo souvenirs about Times Square, and of course, the ubiquitous I Love New York memorabilia.
Oh, and the volume was much louder than I remember. It very well could have been the time we were there, it was at night, probably on a weekend night, so it could be that it was busier than when I went 20 years ago. I found a solution though, which was earplugs, making the Times Square experience much more pleasant.
Also, the McDonald’s was still there. And good on them! I’m really glad they’re still getting business.
Museum of Modern Art
One of the most famous pieces at the Museum fo Modern Art is a Van Gogh painting called, “The Starry Night”, which, if you saw it, you’d recognize immediately, I’m sure. And I know because all my readers are people of quality caliber. They eat arugula, and enjoy Dijon on their burgers. That’s what I like to imagine anyway.
“‘The Starry Night’ looks perfect and whimsical from a distance, and yet, when you get up close to it, it seems chaotic. As if painted with rough brush strokes, and thick layers of different colored paints, in a period of manic creative frenzy.”
That’s what I’d say if I was an art expert anyway. I don’t actually know what I’m talking about but I read a lot of the plaques next to the art pieces, so I think I’m basically a perfect fit for the job.
American Museum of Natural History
Ever seen a T-rex?
Not alive, but its bones?
Well I have.
And let me tell you, I’ve never felt smaller.
The T-rex was a gigantic animal, like a lot of the dinosaurs were. But this one had one weird thing: it had tiny baby arms.
But here’s another weird thing: Its arms were short, but it was STILL stronger than a human’s arms. And humans love swinging around trees. We have buff arms, probably.
A single T-rex tooth is enough to make you shudder with fright.
“What if I was in the carnage path of a T-rex?” I asked myself, staring at the skeleton of the ancient beast, face to face.
Then I had a private chuckle.
“I’d be dead meat…”
Empire State Building
The Empire State building is the view I had at my hotel, so I got to see it at different hours. The coolest thing is it lights up and flashed with multicolored lights and puts on a little light show every once in a while. I don’t know when or what it means, if anything, but it was definitely cool to wake up at 3am and see a light show outside my window.
I recommend, if you’re ever in New York, that you see this magnificent building that looks like a representation of both New York, and the industrial revolution that brought us skyscrapers.
Much of New York’s buildings and infrastructure is reminiscent of the industrial revolution and how it brought us a big bustling city like New York City.
Sorry this part got too serious. There’s nothing funny about the industrial revolution.
One World Trade Center
The tallest building in the New York City skyline is One World Trade Center. A great view of it is actually the ferry from Battery Park in Manhattan, to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Also you can see it other places, but I think the best view was from the ferry.
Broadway
The highlight of the trip for me was seeing “The Book of Mormon,” written by the creators of South Park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone. It’s a musical, with infectous music, and it’s a comedy, with infectous laughter. Basically, you’re going to get infected.
But don’t let that stop you from seeing a Broadway show. Something about experiences with other people, whether you’re an actor in the play, or an audience member yucking it up, something about that is magical.
So #1 thing to do in New York, based on this gal’s opinion, is to see a Broadway show you’re interested in.
Brooklyn Museum
Brooklyn is more than just funny accents and people eating pizza. That’s just 90% of it. Brooklyn has inspired great creative minds, one of which is Spike Lee, who was featured in a large exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum while we were there.
My favorite part was seeing his collection of movie posters signed by famous film industry people. One of the the posters was from Jurassic Park and Stephen Spielberg wrote on it, “Rawr!” The poster next to it was for Jaws, and on it he wrote, “Jaws almost took a bite out of me!”
It was pretty funny and makes me think Stephen Spielberg and I might share the same sense of humor, which will come in handy when we direct my new movie, “Jaws Park”. It’s like a regular park, but there’s a bunch of Jaws and his baby shark family swimming around it.
Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum
If you’re my brother, Mark, you’re gonna looooooove the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum. He knows all about planes and military planes. There was a lot of that. And get this: the museum is ON a historic aircraft carrier. And there’s not just one plane on that bad boy. There’s tons of planes on this boat. Humans, huh? How did we get this far… Putting planes on boats. What are we even doing here??
Madame Tussauds New York
This is a great place to go for photos with celebrities that are made of wax. I really wish I’d known that before I walked in though. I thought I was talking to THE Kim Kardashian, we were really hitting it off too, but no, someone informed me that was a wax figure of her and that she really just looks like that.
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Do you like creepy, weird modern art that makes your bones chill? Imagine a canvas painted completely black. Now imagine all the possibilities of what meaning that piece could hold. Got it? Well you’re wrong, it’s about politics.
That’s my impression of all the plaques at a modern art museum. Maybe I just don’t “get” modern art. Maybe I’m just too critical of art real people put real effort into. But can we just think of another description than “politics”?
Thank you.
The Evolution Store
For a little glimpse into the weird world of evolution, look no further than this shop stop. Be sure to drop in to look at a skeleton of something, or maybe even see a butterfly collection. It’s a small store, but worth a look.
Whitney Museum
One cool art piece we saw was at the Whitney Museum. It was a giant canvas made of painted garbage like syrofoam and bike tires. It looked chaotic. We came up with an elaborate theory on what the piece could possibly be about. We thought it was a message about the state of the environment in the universe. But nope, we were wrong. It was about “politics” again.
Man, if only art could think of a subject other than politics…
When I go to an art museum, I want to see art, if I wanted to read the news, I’d read the news. That’s the way I see it.
But I wouldn’t throw out the baby with the bathwater at the Whitney. We also saw an interesting piece that was a video that looked like influencers on social media, but it was before social media really existed as we know it on the internet. It was video of a young woman in her bedroom listening to Weezer and delivering one liners as captions. Before twitter, before facebook, and before youtube was big. So that was pretty cool.
Overall, New York City was good to us. We ate amazing food whether it was at an upscale French restaurant, or a quick bite at a street vendor selling hot dogs and a sweet, refreshing, and cool, Snapple. The public transportation is tricky. I never learned to read a map, but luckily my husband can read any bus schedule anywhere in the world and get us to where we need to be. Otherwise I would probably still be in New York City, to this day.
Xoxo, Shannon O’Brien