New York Museums

El Greco - new favourite

New York really does have a lot of museums, and we were there long enough to visit quite a few. The other cool thing is that a lot of them have pay-what-you-wish times. They are really expensive otherwise, the Met is $25/person. But actually that is meant to be a suggested payment, since it doesn't pay rent, and is taking up a significant amount of Central Park. Just before we arrived the museum had settled one of the lawsuits against it, around these ticket prices. So we felt a lot more comfortable not paying the "suggested" ticket price.

The trick with this museum is definitely to get there early, and choose what you want to see, it is massive. To see everything in a day would be incredibly tiring. We focused on a few things, like the American and more contemporary art, and I quite enjoyed that. Though even in the older paintings I discovered a new favourite, El Greco, I had never heard of this guy before, but he was painting at the end of the 1500's and yet his art looked incredibly modern. It was so different from everything else of the same time, if you are looking for evidence of time travel, this definitely has to be included.

Performance art at MoMa

We also went to MoMa as well, that is another great museum. I'd been there before, but it's definitely one you can go back to. They always seem to be in the process of installing art in their rooms, I've never seen it completely full. Perhaps it never is. But it is always a good day, for what is open, and the sculpture garden is always great.

The waterfall at the 9/11 memorial

The new World Trade Centre

There is a new museum, or rather a memorial, where the World Trade centre towers used to be. They have built massive fountains where the towers used to stand, or rather waterfalls, in that the water is just flowing down into deep holes, with the names of everyone who died inscribed around it. It's quite effective. The museum is interesting, it's a massive area, which is quite empty. There are some of the original metal foundations, and twisted fire trucks that were damaged when the towers collapsed. Then there is a separate section going through the day of the attack, and the response immediately afterwards, as well as a little bit about aftermath. It feels this section could be a bit larger, since it's completely rammed, and there is nobody else in the area outside it.

It's definitely worth a visit, it was quite moving and such a pivotal moment in recent history. It has a different feel to Hiroshima, which is very sorrowful and more about never letting this happen again. The 9/11 memorial has a different feel at the moment, perhaps that will change over the decades to come. It also costs an awful lot to visit, $24 versus about a pound to visit the Peace museum in Hiroshima. It does give the place a strange feeling, apparently they don't get any federal funds to run the place, so I suppose they have to charge a lot. There was a bit of an out-cry over the gift shop too. So yeah, definitely a different feel.

Sculpture at MoMa

On a lighter note, we also went to the Frick Collection, which had another of those pay-as-you-wish times, I love those museums. This place was really great, it's this old house that was turned into a museum. It was owned by one of those American robber barons, who loved art, and spent a fortune collecting, but he collected things that he liked, rather than a fully curated collection. The house is pretty cool too, right on 5th avenue opposite Central Park. It's not often that you get to go inside one of these grand, old American houses. It may not be on most tourists radars, since it was a lot quieter than the Met or MoMa. It meant that you could really get close to the art works.

One of the last museums we visited was the museum of American finance. I surprisingly enjoyed this, perhaps it's because of my job. But they went over the history of the stock market and the commodities markets. Basically finance has been a constant series of bubbles and crashes. Over and over, and after each one they brought in all these regulations to address that one flaw, and then something else went bust next time. It was quite a cool building to visit, right next to Wall street, and they had some interesting stuff in it; gold bars, commodities, jewellery, any thing you could attach value to.

Gold-plated monopoly at the Finance museum - of course

We also went to the Whitney museum, this is just for American art, it was originally the collection of another rich American, one of the Vanderbilt's. It's in this fantastic new building, on the Hudson river and the start of the Highline park. It is a massive collection, with a couple of rotating exhibitions. I would definitely recommend the audio guide, and they also had almost constant tours in some of the rooms. That was a great idea, it was only short, maybe 30 mins, but quite frequently, a guide would start talking about some of the works, and you could just follow if you wanted. I'm surprised more museums don't do this, it makes the art so much more accessible.

We then finished with a stroll along the Highline, I can see why people rave about it, this is a great park. I wasn't expecting much, but they have done it really well, it's not particularly wide, being the old railway line. But in New York, where there is hardly any greenery to speak of, it's a nice break. And being able to cruise for kilometres without waiting at traffic lights is a real pleasure. I imagine in summer it is completely jammed, there are sculptures all along, and lots of seats, and a few lawn areas. I can see why people are keen for something similar in London.