| Edification value |  |
|---|---|
| Entertainment value | |
| Should you go? |  |
| Time spent | 100 minutes |
| Best thing I saw or learned | It’s surprisingly difficult to pick a favorite! But I will call out Walking Void #2 (1970), which is a highly finished piece of granite, utterly harmonious and balanced. |
Noguchi. I’d always meant to visit the Isamu Noguchi Museum in Queens. I love Japan, and it always sounded like a good little museum to visit. But then again, I only really knew Noguchi from blocks of stone that looked unfinished to me, like the sculptor gave up halfway through, and that famous curvy wood and glass coffee table from the 1950s.
So it never made it to the top of my to-do list.
To sum up, it’s amazing. I won’t look at or think about his work the same way again. Seeing it in its own company, and understanding how it evolved, or how he evolved, was joyous and eye-opening. Continue reading “Isamu Noguchi Museum”
The Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space occupies a classic old-school East Village squat, and consists of some artifacts, photos, and other memorabilia documenting the East Village of the 80s and 90s. It and its denizens focus mainly on squats (abandoned buildings that individuals made habitable and moved into), community gardens, bike lanes, and other aspects of a time and culture that feels increasingly at odds with the hyper-gentrified city of today. 
Marko Shuhan’s 2016 work “Space Needed, Apply Within,” a crazy hodgepodge of paintings and paints and liquor bottles on shelves. Like an artist’s studio compressed into a single wall installation. 
The Ukrainian Museum is one that I definitely wouldn’t go to barring this project. It occupies a sort of blah, to be honest, modern building on a side street off Cooper Square, and has moderate gallery space with temporary exhibits.
“Let us have peace.” So reads the inscription on the last resting place of America’s greatest military hero of the 19th century.
At one point, Grant’s Tomb was the most visited tourist destination in New York City. And to this day it is the largest tomb in North America. Built when the city didn’t extend that far north, it was a prominent marble landmark on a hill, attracting visitors in droves, by boat and train, coach and bus, to pay their respects. 
Hamilton placed a marble bust of himself styled as a slightly smirking, handsome, Roman senator, in the entryway of the Grange. Looking at it now it’s like he’s thinking, “Hey, Jefferson, you may get to be president, but see if anyone composes the biggest musical in Broadway history about YOU someday.”