NEW YORK CITY DAY FOUR: The Guggenheim, History Of Natural Museum, The Met

Our last day in New York City. Insert your favorite scene of a man weeping. We had, in a sense, planned for this day before we left Toronto. We knew that we wanted to see some of the great museums in NYC. We had already been to MOMA in mid town but there were a few museums just north of our hotel, around the Park that we really wanted to check out and we knew that this day, Friday, was going to be rainy and cool so it was perfect time for a museum outing.

We went up 5th Avenue with Central Park on one side and on the other side real estate so expensive I was expecting to be charged rent just for looking at it. NYC is a city of statues and the Park has it's fair share from the traditional ...

... to the contemporary

We also encountered something I considered very New York, something glimpsed in movies and something you will not find in Toronto: A curb side book vendor. You really can buy pretty much everything on the streets of New York

As charming as all this was, our first objective was within our sights: The Guggenheim Museum, not only something on my NYC checklist, but something on my life checklist

Yesterday we had gone to the Museum of Modern Art. MOMA is a building that house art. The Guggenheim is a building that is art. Frank Lloyd Wright worked on the design for this museum for 15 years. It opened in 1959 six months after his death. One of the critiques of the museum was that its design would overshadow the actual exhibits. I cannot necessarily disagree

It is a beautiful building, almost entirely organic. The broad ramp goes up for 5 stories in a very gentle sweep the entire main space infused by the light from the gigantic skylight in the city. The colour of the ramp and walls is neutral, so it does let any art stand out; when were there the ramp was filled with the colorful "reclaimed" metal sculptures of John Chamberlain, it seemed a perfect setting for them

Besides the featured exhibit, the Guggenheim holds some ongoing exhibits, including modern and impressionist paintings. So I got to see original Van Goghs. Again. It's a tough life

I have to admit that visiting this place has been a long running dream of mine; sometimes in real life realizing one's dreams can be disappointing. Not so with the Guggenheim. It is a stunning place, the design leads to a sense of atmosphere, soothing and calm yet somehow still carrying a kind of energy. It is an interior space in which you can spend a long time and not feel enervated as you sometimes can

Down the street from the Guggenheim was the Met, the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We didn't have time to tarry there but we decided to give it a quick look, as it was on our way

Our next objective today was not The Met, but the Museum of Natural History, on the other side of the Park. I grew up reading about this museum which was established in 1869. It was one of the first museums that featured dinosaur fossils and I remember reading the adventures of the fossil hunters who braved a lot of real danger in places like Mongolia in the late teens in order to bring home the bones. It is also the museum featured in the movie A Night At The Museum

The museum is a huge complex with over 30 buildings and as it always has its real emphasis is on research, like most museums only a fraction of its collections are on display. It is a very old school kind of museum; at a time where there weren't a lot of zoos and no TV, people got to view exotic wildlife through the museum's displays and diorama's ... and yes, most of these animals were once living. As I said, it's very old school

In New York when we told people we were going to the Museum of Natural History everyone kept telling us "You have to see the whale, you have to see the whale" The whale, as it turns out, is a life sized .. that would be 94 foot long .. model of a blue whale that hangs from the ceiling in the Hall of Oceans. It may be a model but it's a pretty impressive sight

But still, what this museum is known for, is dinosaurs and it certainly did not disappoint. Before we got to the dinosaurs, we went through the hall of mammals ... here's an mastadon, a kind of elephant, which are not extinct ... hmmm I wonder if Bob Barker could have had something to do with that. Let's be honest, the dude is that old

But really, isn't it all about the dinosaurs? And until Stephen Spielberg refers to us the secret actual location of Jurassic Park, this is the best we have

The museum certainly has an impressive collection of fossils. It is a big place and there is a lot to it. We found it a bit bewildering to get around in; halls and corridors are not very well marked and finding a bathroom or an elevator probably resembled what the fossil hunters went through, wandering the deserts of Mongolia.

We had chalked up a lot more miles of walking today and we wanted to rest up for our final evening in New York so we made our way back to our hotel. It was feeling like home by then and our room, which had seemed small at first, was looming large in our minds. 

Being New York, there were always things to note on our way back to midtown. During our stay we were always admiring the beautiful ornate architecture of New York's historical building. This next structure is not at all beautiful, but it is famous, and if one admires anything about it, it would be ego

After resting up at the hotel, it was back down towards Times Square for our last night in New York. We wanted to go to some place special for our final meal ... wow that didn't sound too ominous did it. We had had some good food in the city but aside from our first night, hadn't really had a great dining experience. But I did buy slices from Famous Ray's Pizza and had a hot bagel from a vending truck and those were checkmarks so I was happy.

We decided to go to BB King's Blues Club, which had passed by yesterday. It is a kind of complex in its own right. There is the Lucille Cafe open during the day, a large club space upstairs and downstairs a small, dark, comfortable bar. That's where we went. The had a singer, a guy with acoustic, very reminiscent of Keb Mo. We had some Memphis style ribs, I had a beer brewed specially for the club and we toasted to our final night in New York.