Touristy Midtown & Hipster Williamsburg

        Our adventures in Manhattan continue even on a rainy day! We met up in Penn station and began our walking spree passing by Broadway. We strolled by the famous pedestrian zone created to lessen traffic and allow New Yorkers and tourist to sit down, relax, and enjoy the view. Although I pass by this zone quite often I have never actually sat down to join the loungers. It seems cool to be able to relax in the midst of a big city to enjoy good food, excellent views, and cute sculptures placed around the pedestrian zone. As we continued on to 42nd Street we arrived to the popular Times Square. The city's theater developed around Times Square during the first three decades of the 20th century. As advances in transportation made the district widely accessible and investors realized the profits of theaters as real estate, Time Square flourished. New York's best season came in 1927-28, when 80 theaters were in operation (today there are 39 Broadway theaters) (BG, p. 217). Mike informed us that in the 1960-1970s Times Square was known for drugs, prostitution, and pornography. Hard to believe, considering how beautiful and safe this area of the city looks.Thankfully a turnaround for this area began in the late 1980s, with new commercial real estate, governmental non-profit organizations contributions, and the formation of the New 42nd Street (BG, p. 218). These changes made Times Square cleaner, safer, and more tourist friendly, making it one of my favorite locations in Manhattan!.

   We continued our adventure, and began heading towards Rockefeller Center, a complex of commercial buildings, theaters, plazas, underground concourses, and shops developed primary during the Depression (BG, p.243). It was the first architecturally coordinated development in New York city, and became a National Historic Landmark in 1987 (BG, p. 243). We walked through the G. E. Building first, and Mike informed us that it is the home of NBC Studios!. The G.E. building was the first building constructed at Rockefeller Center, and is in the Art Deco architectural style. As I walked in I was intrigued my the beautiful murals, and the design of the building. I enjoyed the story behind the mural American Progress by Jose maria Sert. As beautiful as this mural is, Mike informed us that it is actually quite famous for replacing the controversial Diego Rivera Fresco. Rivera submitted a sketch acceptable by his patrons, but then produced a fresco that included a portrait of Lenin, causing controversial issue (BG, p. 249). The Rockefellers eventually destroyed the fresco, and commissioned a new artist. As we proceeded out towards the Lower Plaza we saw a glimpse of the promenade, and the hundreds of flags surrounding it. I loved seeing the plaque in which the famous Christmas tree stands on, I cannot wait to come back in December to see it!

      Our next stop was MoMA, one of the city's premier cultural institutions, one of the great repositories not only of modern painting and sculpture, but also of drawing, design, photography, and film (BG, p. 260). It was founded in 1929 by Abby Rockefeller, Lillie P. Bliss, and Mary Quinn Sullivan as a small museum that would allow people to appreciate modern art (BG, p. 260). I was excited to finally be able to visit this famous museum everyone speaks about! We began by looking at their exhibit titled Century of the Child. The exhibit contained many modern toys, books, paintings, and many more objects representing the child of the 20th century. We then proceeded to viewing the museums modern art collection. My favorite part was seeing artist we had already seen before at the Met, such as Robert Rauschenberg, and Jackson Pollock. I enjoyed looking at Rauschenber's combines, such as Bed, created in 1955. He creates interesting and unique looking paintings, and adds random objects making the painting look as if it has entered our dimensional world. We explored minimalistic paintings, such as The Voice, by Barnett Newman. I have never seen paintings like these before, and as Mike said, these paintings look like something anybody can do. However there is much more to these beautiful paintings.  They give off calm emotions, making the viewer feel serene and peaceful. I enjoyed looking at these paintings, I felt like some clutter that was in my head was definitely relieved. Pollocks drip paintings on the other hand depict raw, powerful, and angry emotions. It is beautiful too see two very different sided of the spectrum, all under one roof!

     After our amazing experience at the MoMa, we headed to Hell's Kitchen for lunch! During the mid-19th century Hell's Kitchen attracted large groups of immigrants, particularly the Irish, who lived in some of the city's worst tenements, and worked in some of its least desired industries (BG, p. 226). Plagued by drugs and crime in the 1970s, Hells Kitchen began to gentrify in the 1980s (BG, p. 226). It is also the cite of the annual Ninth Avenue International Food Festival, needless to say the Thai food was delicious!!Yum Yum is definitely on my list of places to visit again!

    After our delicious lunch break, we headed to hipster Williamsburg. When we arrived at Bedford Avenue. Mike and Meritta informed us of the enormous amount of gentrification that has actually occurred there. Years ago the crime rate in Williamsburg was through the roof, and families were moving out in search of safer neighborhoods. Thanks to gentrification things have become safer, and of course pricier. As artist started to move into the area, gentrification was simply inevitable. We began our exploration of Williamsburg and found ourselves in quite an unusual museum, The City Reliquary. This cute little museum is nothing like I have seen before. This non-profit museum focuses on preserving the beautiful history of New York. It has amazing items from the past, such as old subway handles, firefighter uniforms, items from the Ne York's World's Fair, and an ancient medicine cabinet! I loved looking at their collection of umbrellas outside, and the pictures of kids getting their first haircuts. The pictures were on the wall of a local barbershop to show other kid's that if their friends can get haircuts so can they! This is a lovely example of how united the community was at the time.

     As we continued our voyage in Williamsburg, we headed over to The Brooklyn Art Library, home of the Sketchbook Project. This library is definitely like no other library! The sketchbook library project is an amazing way to admire and collect art. For $25 you get a blank sketchbook, in which you can decorate, draw, paint, or anything your heart desires! Then you send it back to the library, and it becomes part of their sketchbook collection. People from all over the world participate in this, making it an amazing worldwide art collection. As I looked at a couple of sketchbooks I was pretty amazed at how beautiful and creative some were. Some of the sketchbooks I saw were from Korea, Japan, and India. It is such a lovely thing to be able to be connected to thousands of people all over the world over one simple similarity: the love and appreciation for art.

   As we continued our journey to our last stops, we passed by the beautiful waterfront, and noted that it looks quite similar to Long island City. It has a very relaxing vibe to it, and a beautiful view. We also passed by a couple of art galleries, proving to us that Williamsburg has the most unique art in New York. Our day ended, but some of us continued the exploration! We headed to Beacon's Closet, a famous thrift shop with excellent prices! We shopped till we dropped, and headed home with our pockets empty, but our wardrobes full!!