New York City Part 1: July 5 - 10, 2024

"Old Tree" by Pamela Rosenkranz

We selected our hotel based on location. We arrived at Moynihan Penn Train Station and the hotel we picked was right across the street making it a great location for getting there and getting around. Needing exercise after sitting on Amtrak for several hours we headed to the High Line. The High Line (opened in 2009) is a public park built on an historic freight rail line elevated above the streets on Manhattan’s West Side. Since our last NYC visit the Moynihan Connector has been added to the High Line. The first piece of art that really can't be missed is the beautiful "Old Tree" by Pamela Rosenkranz. It is quite beautiful and there were always crowds of people photographing the tree or themselves.

Moynihan Connector Looking over the Lower Rail Yard from the High Line

The High Line ends about 1.5 miles (2.5 km) later at the Whitney Museum of Art. The High Line was the path we most frequently trod during our stay. There are beautiful gardens with flowers and trees, art, and very interesting views of the buildings along the way. The reflections change as the light changes.

The High Line's volunteer gardeners are in the process of replacing plants with heat and drought tolerant plants. The major art pieces are juried in and are changed every two years.

We took a boat from Battery Park to visit Lady Liberty. I think that maybe 30 years ago I saw her in passing from the Staten Island Ferry, but this was much better. The boat unloads passengers at Liberty Island. When you're done looking at the views and the museum and taking an excellent ranger-led tour, you can catch another boat to Ellis Island and from there return to Battery Park. The only way you can see the front of the Statue of Liberty is by boat. And, if you want to climb up to the crown or even just the pedestal, you must buy that ticket several days or weeks in advance. Those options were sold out when we thought of it. The National Park Service has authorized only one company, Statue City Cruises, to sell tours of Liberty and Ellis Island.

The statue was conceived as a gift from the artist Bartholdi and France in celebration of the 100th birthday (July 4, 1776) of the United States. The deal was that France would fund the statue and the US would fund the pedestal she was to be mounted upon.

Fund raising for the Pedestal was slow. As time was getting short, The American Committee for the Statue of Liberty held an art and literary auction to raise funds. Emma Lazarus wrote a sonnet she called "The New Colossus" in 1883 to aid the fund raising effort for the Pedestal.

Lady Liberty is based on the ancient goddess Libertas. She is "Liberty Enlightening the World." She arrived in New York Harbor on June 17, 1885, but due to lack of funds to build the pedestal, she wasn't set upon her pedestal until October 28, 1886. On the tablet she holds it says July 4, 1776.

In 1903, long after the Emma Lazarus had died, a bronze plaque bearing a portion of her sonnet was installed on the inner side of the statue's pedestal.

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

On to Ellis Island with its archives, movies, exhibits, and docent tours. From 1900-1924 the Registry Room was filled with new arrivals waiting to be inspected and registered by the Immigration Service. On some days as many as 5,000 people would file through the space where they encountered the demands of the immigration laws and the American bureaucracy that could either grant or withhold permission to stay. About 90% of immigrants were granted permission to stay. Of the ten percent who were not initially passed for heath reasons or something else, just 2% were returned to their country of origin.

The Registry Room (center photo) has been restored to its appearance in 1918-1924. A photo of two Georgian men in traditional costume caught my eye. They worked in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show as "Cossacks." Cossacks come from Ukraine not Georgia. The men's names are Iason Imnadze (left) and Kirile Khoperia (right).

One day we took the subway to Queens to the MOMA PS1 museum to see two textile exhibitions. "L.A. Liberty" on the left and "I Thought the Streets Were Paved with Gold" were created by Pacitia Abad (1946-2004) after her 1991 visit to Ellis Island. Abad, born in the Philippines, was struck by a 1903 quote by an Italian immigrant:

"I came to America because I heard the streets were paved with gold. When I got here, I found out three things: First, the streets weren't paved with gold; second, they weren't paved at all; and third, I was expected to pave them."

The other textile artist is Melissa Cody (b. 1983). A member of the Navajo Nation she incorporates traditional Navajo/Diné symbols and patterns with references from Arizona landscapes to video games. The piece on the left is "Into the Depths, She Rappels, in the center "World Traveler", and on the right "Untitled."

We visited the MOMA and were lucky enough to see an exhibition of the work of Käthe Kollwitz who is one of my favorite artists. I enjoyed the MOMA and the way they have audio numbers printed on the labels making it easy to find out more about a piece of art.

At the Whitney Museum one of the pieces I most appreciated was a piece by Kiyan Williams "Ruins of Empire II or the Earth Swallows the Master's House, 2024." On the right is Kollwitz' sculpture "The Lamentation 1941-42" at the MOMA exhibition of Kollwitz's work. She created this piece in memory of her friend and fellow artist Ernst Barlach who died after prolonged persecution by the Nazis. Many of her works dealt with death, mothers, and poverty.

Little Island Park on the Hudson River is visible from the High Line and the Whitney Museum. It is fairly new as it opened in 2021. The gardens are lovely and have a nice view of the river. The park replaced the dilapidated Pier 54 where in 1912 the ship Carpathia dropped off surviving passengers rescued from the Titanic. In 1915, the ship Lusitania left from Pier 54 before being torpedoed by a German U-boat off the coast of Ireland on May 7. The park is next to Pier 57 which has tons of food stalls all curated by The James Beard Foundation.

One evening we met our friend Medea for dinner at Chama Mama for Georgian food. We know Medea from our almost year-long stay in Tbilisi, Georgia. Medea was a lawyer in the same office as my husband. She eventually emigrated to the US and is now both a US citizen and a working lawyer in NYC. We don't have much chance where we live in California to have Georgian food so Medea obliged us by finding a Georgian restaurant in NYC. Chama Mama is billed as having laid back Georgian food. I think all Georgian restaurants are laid back. The food and wine at Chama Mama are excellent.

Particulars:

Xi'an Famous Foods, locations all over, but we ate at one in Queens. We each had a Spicy Cumin Lamb Burger which was amazing. The sliced lamb is piled onto thin homemade buns. It had the perfect amount of spice and was very delicious.

Good Thanks Cafe, 131 Orchard St, for a lunch after visiting the Center for Photography we had short-rib sandwiches with a miso slaw which were so tender and good. Very friendly and good food.

In between sightseeing we went to three plays: The Outsiders, Hadestown, and N/A.

The Outsiders and Hadestown were both on Broadway. I enjoyed the energetic dancing and the story of the Outsiders. Hadestown wasn't my favorite. N/A was a two-woman play modeled on the relationship between Nancy Pelosi and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC). It was smart, witty, educational, and very entertaining. N/A was at Lincoln Center.