With a heatwave forecast (and there isn’t one already?!), a museum visit seemed like a wise move. To that end, I took the “6” train to 103rd Street, close to the “Museum of the City of New York”.
This is, as the name suggests a museum showing the history, and culture of this amazing city. Inside I enjoyed the myriad galleries, including the history of activism in the city, an overview of the history of graffiti art, and an interactive room with the history of 100 years of songs about New York. I particularly enjoyed this quite innovative exhibit where one could stand on the lit shape of one of the boroughs to be played a song about that area. I noted a song by Billy Joel representing Staten Island amongst many others. I’m sure that if I were to exhaust the “playlist”, I would hear him several times.
I investigated the exhibition of dance in New York City, and was pleased to see “Voguing” featured. There were current members of the “House of LaBeija” demonstrating. One of the “Mothers” of that particular house also features in the montage gallery of Movies filmed in New York City, as part of the hugely important documentary “Paris is Burning”. You need to watch this, if you have not already seen it. I also spotted many more of my favourites including “Ghostbusters”, “Ghostbusters 2”, “Elf”, “When Harry Met Sally”, and “Muppets Take Manhattan”. When you stock up the number of movies that feature this city it is huge, and in the words of Mr. Crisp, New York is indeed “…exactly like the movies”.
There was also an exhibition on the city itself. The history was traced from it being a Dutch trading post called “New Amsterdam” to the vast 5-borough metropolis we know today. I was a little more “skim reading” this gallery as I had seen it before. It is very good, and nicely backed up with a documentary feature shown on the lower level narrated by Stanley Tucci.
I left the cool of the museum for a mixture of rain, thunder, howling gales, and searing heat to head to the East side of Central Park. I was going to visit the grounds of Colombia University, but it was closed to staff only. Instead, I found a post office for my correspondence, and located “Tom’s Restaurant”. I know this location as the inspiration behind the Suzanne Vega song “Tom’s Diner”.
A non-air-conditioned-coach on the “1” line was the first part of my journey downtown. The “R” train mercifully was cool, and took me back to The East Village.
Dinner was taken at “Taqueria” in St. Marks Place. I enjoyed the fresh-tasting “tacos”, and “flautas” very much, with a beer. I was very glad of the fresh tastes on an extremely hot day.
