DAY #3: A RAINY ADVENTURE AROUND THE EASTSIDE

       As I arrived to Penn Station, I knew it would be a long, rainy, and gloomy day. I prepared before class and brought clothes indicated for the weather we were expecting. Our first stop was The Metropolitan Museum of Art located on 5th Avenue. It was quite an experience walking to the Metropolitan Museum under the heavy rain, and entering the museum covered in mud and rain.

       The Metropolitan Museum of Art, usually called The Met, is the largest, most comprehensive art museum in the world (BG, 326). The Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in 1870 by a group of American citizens, who wanted to create a museum to bring art and art education to the American people. The Metropolitan’s paintings collection began in 1870, and 174 paintings in all, came to the museum.

The Metropolitan Museum contains everything from Greek, Egyptian to Medieval Art etc. As we explored the museum, we focused a great amount on the contemporary art in the upper floors of the museum where professor Don had great knowledge on the different works of art. I am not interested in contemporary art because I do not understand the meaning behind the different works of art.

However, in the end its art and the time put into the work is amazing. Contemporary art has to do with the feelings of the artist, and the message the work of art provides, which is pretty interesting on that aspect. Some of the artists we observed at the museum were Morris Louis, Mark Rothko, Andy Warhol, Chuck Close and many more. I didn’t seem to understand Mark Rothko’s piece called No.3, Oil on canvas. It seemed to have perfect straight lines, and squares that were colored perfectly in different colors with a blue background.

The message behind his art work as specified at the museum, represented the height and width of a human standing with arms, and created what he called “doors” and “windows’ in different colors. Mark Rothko was born on September 25, 1903 and died on February 25, 1970. He was American painter whose works introduced contemplative introspection into the melodramatic post- World War II Abstract Expressionist School and his use of colour as the sole means of expression led to the development of Colour Field Painting.

       After exploring the museum a bit, we later had an hour to explore the museum on our own. The most interesting part of the museum to me was the section of The Medieval and Byzantine, and The Egyptian Art.

The collection of ancient Egyptian Art at the Metropolitan Museum ranks among the finest outside Cairo. It consists of approximately 36,000 objects of artistic, historical and cultural importance, from the Paleolithic to the Roman period. In the Medieval Arts section the work was created from the 4th to early 16th century, roughly from the time of the fall of Rome to the beginning of the Renaissance (BG, 340). In addition, the information provided about The Byzantine Egyptian Gallery was extremely interesting.
It specified that the gallery is carved from the space between the great brick arches and walls that support the Museum’s Grand Staircase.Furthermore, the lightning in the gallery is dimmed in order to protect the old textiles on display.

       We later had a change of plans due to the weather. Unfortunately, we headed to Grand Central Terminal, instead of going to Central Park. I was upset that we didn’t have a chance to explore Central Park, and the beautiful Boat Pond as well as the sites associated with John Lennon. However, we had the opportunity to explore Grand Central Terminal.
Grand Central remains one of the world’s greatest railroad stations, and an enduring symbol of the city (BG, 228). Also, the Grand Central Terminal was constructed of glass and steel, the 100 foot wide by 650 foot long structure rivaled the Eiffel Tower and Crystal Palace for primary as the most dramatic engineering achievement of the 19th century. We also had lunch at Grand Central Terminal due to extreme weather we were encountering.

       Our next stop was the New York Public Library. The New York Public Library is officially the Humanities and Social Sciences Library, one of the libraries four major research facilities, world famous for its collections and much admired for the architecture of its building (BG, 207). I was amazed at the architecture of the library and the elegancy of my surroundings. I felt studious after sitting down in the main reading room in complete silence while I took down some notes and observed others completing their work.

       To end our rainy adventurous day, we walked through 5th Avenue a very upscale street. We passed the St. Patrick’s Cathedral, down to the Peninsula Hotel, then to the Tiffany store, and ended at FAO Schwartz.

FAO Schwartz was the highlight of my day, since it made me feel like I was a kid again. It brought back childhood memories of when I was excited to enter FAO Schwartz, and I will continue to have the same reaction until this day. It was a nice feeling looking around for toys, and playing the piano with my feet. Although the rough circumstances of the weather that didn’t stop us, I learned quite a good amount of information about the East Side of the City, and had a great time as well.