Waterfront Museum

Edification value 2/5 
Entertainment value  3/5
Should you go?  2/5
Time spent 28 minutes
Best thing I saw or learned I perused an article on the Waterfront Museum in “Hidden Places Magazine.” A bit of googling suggests it only published a single issue, consisting of the glossiest, most fashionable Red Hook promotional material ever created.

Waterfront Museum, BrooklynDavid Sharps is an adventurer, circus performer, and raconteur and seems like a very nice man. He’s certainly brave. He and his family have lived in a wooden barge, currently docked in Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood, since the 1980s.

It’s a life I find hard to imagine, and one that definitely affords a unique perspective on New York Harbor.

The barge itself is adorable — painted red, emblazoned with its name, “Lehigh Valley No. 79.” It dates to 1914, when longshoremen used thousands of craft like it to ferry cargo from large, deep-water ships in the harbor to railroad cars on the shallow New Jersey side of the Hudson.

Sharps discovered the dilapidated barge mired in the mud in New Jersey. Reportedly the very last of its kind, he got the Lehigh Valley floating again, and he’s been fixing it up ever since, docking in various places around the harbor. He launched the museum in 1986. Continue reading “Waterfront Museum”

New York Botanical Garden

Edification value  3/5
Entertainment value  4/5
Should you go?  4/5
Time spent 176 minutes (including lunch) — I could easily spend a whole day
Best thing I saw or learned The display of plant carnivores:  flytraps, sundews, pitcher plants.  My favorite members of the floral kingdom.

Carnivorous Plants, New York Botanical Garden
Chomp!

New York Botanical GardenBoth New Yorkers and non-New Yorkers alike tend to think of the Bronx as entirely, unremittingly gray: paved urban overdevelopment at its very worst. In reality, the Bronx features large expanses of green.

  • Pelham Bay Park (home to the Barstow-Pell Mansion) is the largest of the city’s parks.
  • Van Cortlandt Park (home to the eponymous house) is also sizable.
  • Wave Hill and the other verdant bits of Riverdale along the Hudson are beautiful.
  • Woodlawn Cemetery recently got certified as an arboretum.
  • And let’s not forget the Zoo.

But of all the many green spaces the Bronx has to offer, the most beautiful must surely be the New York Botanical Garden.

Chihuly at New York Botanical Garden
Herbarium and Library, Fountain, Glass Art

The New York Botanical Garden dates to 1891 and sprawls across 250 acres. (Don’t worry, there’s a tram.) Its vast holdings include a spectacular neoclassical Herbarium & Library, and an even more spectacular glass conservatory. Calvert Vaux and the Olmstead Brothers had hands in the Garden’s design, and of course it’s hard to beat them for this sort of thing. Continue reading “New York Botanical Garden”

New-York Historical Society

Edification value  4/5
Entertainment value  
Should you go?  4/5
Time spent 94 minutes
Best thing I saw or learned John Singer Sargent’s “Gassed,” 1919, a monumental oil painting on loan for the WWI show from the Imperial War Museum, London.  It’s a Sargent, so it’s as civilized and genteel as war gets. But at the same time, it’s a far cry from the fancy society folks I’m used to from him.

Sargent at New-York Historical Society

new-york historical society

The New-York Historical Society came into being in 1804, making it (according to itself) the oldest museum in the city. Its recent evolution presents a case study of a dusty old institution retooling itself for the social media age. Over the past decade or so a series of renovations turned it from the somewhat hermetic, academic attic of the city into a bright, airy, less-dense institution. Bronze statues of Abe Lincoln and Frederick Douglass welcome you outside the front doors, and that unexpected, slightly eccentric vibe continues within.

Of the many things I like about the Historical Society, I sometimes think my favorite thing is the hyphen between “New” and “York.” Nowhere else bothers with that anymore. However, without it visitors might think that they are visiting the new historical society of York, England. I bet that happened a lot in the 19th century. It’s really thoughtful.  I shall feel quite cross if they ever drop it and rebrand as the Newyork Historical Society. Continue reading “New-York Historical Society”

Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum

Edification value  4/5
Entertainment value  4/5
Should you go?  
Time spent 150 minutes, including 26 queued to get in. I could easily have spent more (inside, that is).
Best thing I saw or learned Concorde, Intrepid Museum, New York

For all those who think technology progresses in only one direction, Intrepid offers a few counterfactuals, but none better than Concorde.  From 1976 until 2003, people (very few, and very rich to be sure) jetted across the Atlantic in under 3.5 hours.  I hope we see supersonic travel again in my lifetime.  But I doubt it.

Intrepid Air Sea Space Museum New YorkDriving up the west side of Manhattan helps New Yorkers exercise our jadedness.  Here’s my routine with out-of-towners. 

  • Oh, the Renzo Piano Whitney building.  I was just there the other day. 
  • Hmph, High Line.  Too crowded with tourists. 
  • Frank Gehry’s IAC Building is really showing its age, isn’t it?
  • I can sometimes be bothered to look up from my smartphone at midtown’s forest of skyscrapers.
  • Hudson Yards, a whole new city within the city, is an inconvenient and messy construction zone. 
  • And that over there?  Oh, that’s just our aircraft carrier.

I can act the part. But, oh, the Intrepid. I’m still a kid at heart. I love boats and planes and exploding things. And the Intrepid has all of that, including a Concorde, a nuclear submarine, and even a (sort of) space shuttle. I love that we’ve got an aircraft carrier, just parked next to Manhattan like its crew dropped by to see a show or go shopping on Canal Street.

As I’ve observed, New York has a glut of art museums and far too few science museums.  Intrepid is one of the latter, with a good dose of history to boot.  Partly due to supply and demand, then, there can be long lines. And it gets away with charging a hefty entrance fee.  Still, it’s worth it. Continue reading “Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum”

New York Transit Museum

Edification value  3/5
Entertainment value 4/5
 
Should you go?  4/5
Time spent 113 minutes
Best thing I saw or learned The Transit Museum could rebrand itself as a museum of advertising.  Not only have they lovingly preserved subway cars from the past century, they have kept the ads intact as well.  Each constitutes a hilarious Madison Avenue time capsule.  Remember when wine cost 98c per quart?  I sure don’t.

The Transit Museum is one of only a few New York City museums not housed in a building.  Instead, the city established it in a disused subway station in downtown Brooklyn.

Along with its satellite location in Grand Central Station, this museum features a series of exhibits covering the construction of the subway system, how the transit system responds to disasters, the construction of the Second Avenue Subway, and above-ground transport in New York, from horse trolleys to modern buses.

Lunch pails, New York Transit Museum
Workers’ Lunch Pails and Canteens, from the building of the subway

Trainspotting

But the real heart of the Transit Museum resides downstairs on the subway platform.  There, you can visit lovingly restored El and subway cars from every era of the transit system’s evolution.  Marvel at these steel boxes, with their incandescent lights, exposed fans, rattan seats, and hanging hold-straps.  About the only historic subway feature not documented is the graffiti. I suppose not enough time has passed… The MTA can’t wax nostalgic about tagged trains, at least not yet. And it certainly doesn’t want to encourage anyone.

Vintage Subway Car, Transit Museum
BMT Q Car, 1908, rebuilt 1938

If you have ever felt curiosity about the history of the turnstile, this museum can scratch that itch. It features examples ranging from the manually operated days through modern, automated, swipe-your-metrocard marvels.  Most interesting to me was the large size, un-jump-able rotating cage, affectionately(?) referred to as an “Iron Maiden.” Apparently people sometimes got trapped in those things — horrors!

Turnstiles, New York Transit Museum

A history of the subway token half-tells the story of Silvester Dubosz, the city comptroller who in the 1980s surreptitiously had his initials carved into the token design.  Unlike City Reliquary, where I first heard that story, the Transit Museum doesn’t mention he got sacked for his ego. They also display a whole board of slugs and counterfeit tokens.

The Downside:  Kids Galore

The Transit Museum stands as one of the noisiest museums I’ve visited so far, packed with kids (including a whole birthday party) on a rainy Saturday afternoon.  Can’t hold that against it; I’ve never known a kid who doesn’t love trains, and the museum caters to that audience. Though as for modern parents’ inability to keep their kids under control and well-behaved in public…well, that’s a subject for another blog.  Still, if you’re kidless, you might consider visiting on a weekday.

More than History

The Transit Museum tells the story of the city’s circulatory system — New York literally could not exist without it.  I appreciate that they focus not just on the building of the system and nostalgic old trains, but also on what it will require to keep it functioning in a world of really bad weather and really bad people. The crisis exhibit looked in turn at rebuilding after 9/11, Irene, and Sandy, as well as the blackout of 2003.

Crisis Exhibit at Transit Museum, NYC
“Bringing Back the City: Transit Responds to Crisis” Exhibit

Despite the challenges of modern times, the Transit Museum nonetheless also makes me thankful that I live today.  While paying 98c for a quart of wine appeals to me,  I can’t imagine commuting in one of those incredibly smelly, sweaty, pre-AC subway cars, dressed in a three-piece suit, with only whirring fans to move the muggy air around.  I sometimes think the “Greatest Generation” gets overly lauded, but commuters back then were made of sterner stuff than I, for sure.

A Frustrated Reviewer

The Transit Museum fulfills its mission extremely well.  It covers the things you’d expect a transit museum to, but holds surprises as well.  Although kid-oriented and very kid-friendly, it also presents topics for grown-ups to delve into as well. As I re-read this entry, I feel frustrated because I want to write so much more.  Some highlights:

  • The story of Granville Woods.  As the inventor of the “third rail” power system, he birthed a metaphor. 
  • As a trivia buff, I loved learning that on December 23, 1946, 8,872,244 people used the subway and elevated trains– a record that stands to this day. 
  • I also love Mayor Lindsay’s 1972 quote about the Second Avenue Subway line (proposed in 1919, it finally opened at the end of 2016):  “We know that whatever is said about this project in the years to come, certainly no one can say that the city acted rashly or without due deliberation.”
  • And there’s the wall of trolleys at the Dr. George T. F. Rahilly Trolley and Bus Study Center.
Trolley Models, Transit Museum
New York City Model Trolley Collection

Like the treasures of the Fire Museum, the Transit Museum presents and interprets artifacts no other institution can replicate. Anyone with kids in the city should take them.  And anyone who cares about New York history, or transportation and transit, should consider this Brooklyn hole in the ground a must-visit museum.

Historic Photo, NYC Transit Museum
Building the subway, NYC Transit Museum

For Reference:

Address Boerum Place and Schermerhorn Streets, Underground, Brooklyn
Website nytransitmuseum.org
Cost  General Admission:  $10

 

New York City Fire Museum

Edification value
Entertainment value
Should you go?
Time spent 62 minutes
Best thing I saw or learned This incredible 1872 punch bowl and goblets, 36 pieces and 800 ounces worth (that’s 50 pounds!  22.68kg!) of sterling silver.  A gift to Isaac Newton Marks, president of the New Orleans Fireman’s Charitable Association.  It’s hard to see in the picture but the stem of each goblet is a fire fighter.

New York City Fire MuseumThe Fire Museum is like the attic of the New York City Fire Department.  It’s where all the old interesting stuff is, and exploring it is very much like sifting through a collection of fire-related artifacts that someone at some point considered worth keeping. Continue reading “New York City Fire Museum”