manhattan Archives - Page 9 of 14

July 11, 2017April 2, 2018

Jewish Museum

Edification value
Entertainment value
Should you go?
Time spent	140 minutes
Best thing I saw or learned	Florine Stettheimer’s marvelous “Heat” from 1919. Summer languor distilled into color.

Entrance, Jewish Museum, New York The first time I visited the Jewish Museum, in July of 2017, it was in the midst of re-installing its permanent collection, taking a floor and a substantial part of the reason to visit offline. I had doubts concerning the temporary shows on at the time— odd curatorial decisions, highly esoteric subject matter and general kitschiness all nudged me away from strongly recommending the museum.

I’ve now been back to see the new permanent galleries, and I’m happy to say that in a rare re-review of a place, the permanent collection hugely and positively changes my impression of the place. As a result, I’m updating my review and my summary rating (it was formerly all 3s). Continue reading “Jewish Museum”

July 4, 2017June 22, 2025

Studio Museum in Harlem

Edification value
Entertainment value
Should you go?
Time spent	72 minutes
Best thing I saw or learned	Barkley L. Hendricks, Lawdy Mama, 1969, from the portraits show. Arresting today, must’ve been even more so when new. To quote the wall text, “Hendricks uses the master’s tools to dismantle his house.”

CURRENTLY CLOSED – As of JUNE 2025, The Studio Museum in Harlem remains closed as it finishes building its new home. Reportedly to open in the Fall of 2025

Studio Museum in Harlem, New York The Studio Museum in Harlem harbors no small ambitions, despite its smallish space. It prints its mission statement outside its front door:

The Studio Museum in Harlem is the nexus for artists of African descent, locally, nationally and internationally and for work that has been inspired and influenced by black culture. It is a site for the dynamic exchange of ideas about art and society.

As Chief Brody says in Jaws, “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”

And yet, I left the Studio Museum reflecting that they do a masterful job with the boat they’ve got. Continue reading “Studio Museum in Harlem”

July 3, 2017June 22, 2025

Rubin Museum of Art

Edification value
Entertainment value
Should you go?
Time spent	203 minutes (including a leisurely supper)
Best thing I saw or learned	Tibetan Buddhism has a macabre streak a mile wide, and I find it deeply endearing. They make bowls out of skulls and trumpets out of human leg bones. Perhaps not for everyone, but I consider that a healthy attitude toward mortality. What goth (or goth sympathizer) wouldn’t love the idea of dancing in the charnel fields with the Lords of the Cremation Grounds?

Rubin Museum of Art, Manhattan

CLOSED. The Rubin Museum of Art closed as of October 2024. I loved the Rubin, and am sorry to see it go, or as they euphemistically put it, become “a museum without walls.” Uh huh. Well, Buddhism is nothing if not about cycles, perhaps a future wall-bound incarnation will return someday. In the meantime, New York’s museum world is poorer for the loss –we still have Tibet House and the Jacques Marchais Museum of Tibetan Art in Staten Island, though I can’t say I’m a huge fan of either of them.

—

New York’s museums house themselves in a wide variety of repurposed spaces. Disused armories, synagogues, navy yards, customs houses, aircraft carriers, robber-baron mansions (galore), activist storefronts… nearly anything can be transformed into a museum with sufficient effort of will (and money).

But I believe only one museum in the city exists in a former department store. The old Barney’s, on 17th Street near Seventh Avenue, is now the home of the Rubin Museum of Art. It’s audacious that a former home of high-end fashion retail now teaches people about Tibetan Buddhism and related Himalayan cultures. Both rarefied atmospheres in their own ways, but that’s the only thing they have in common.

The Rubin, though, stands as a supremely successful museum conversion. It offers seven floors of exhibit space, a far better restaurant than you’d expect, and (hearkening back to the DNA of the building) a lovely little gift shop full of Buddhist and New Agey treasures (but sadly no leg bone trumpets).

Continue reading “Rubin Museum of Art”

July 2, 2017January 12, 2018

National Jazz Museum in Harlem

Edification value
Entertainment value
Should you go?
Time spent	13 minutes
Best thing I saw or learned	A poster of the famous Esquire Magazine jazz family portrait, taken on the stoop of a Harlem brownstone. The museum doesn’t say much about the creation of the picture, but the 1995 documentary “A Great Day in Harlem” covers it well.

Hey there, daddy-o, if you’re a swingin’ hep cat and you dig the syncopated sounds of America’s native musical form, have I got a museum for you!

Actually, I don’t. I went to the Jazz Museum skeptical but hopeful, and ultimately I can’t recommend it.

Skeptical because how do you put jazz in a museum? Music of any sort is a tricky thing to museum-ify. But jazz in particular, with its energy and improvisation… you could have a Hall of Fame for jazz. But a museum?

Hopeful because, hey, you never know. The right combination of stories, artifacts, and interactive listening kiosks might be able to do justice to the vast sweep of traditions that comprise jazz and its influence across the whole of music.

In the event, the Jazz Museum is at best a proto-museum. An aspirational museum. A sketch or an outline for an institution in the future. It occupies a small ground floor space on a side street in Harlem, and seems largely to exist as a shrine to one of Duke Ellington’s pianos. They have a couple of other instruments from less famous instrumentalists, and a chunk of a living room emphasizing the importance of music in homes in Harlem. But really there wasn’t much to see.

Duke Ellington's Piano, Jazz Museum Harlem — Duke Ellington’s Piano

They had Ella playing in the background, but even that proved a mixed blessing. There were a couple of touchscreens where visitors can listen to jazz, but the background music, while good, interfered with listening to the headphones.

Interactive Screen The Jazz Museum, Harlem — Also, their interactive jazz bios are in some cases tragically out of date.

On the other hand, their space includes a tiny, informal performance area in the back, and while I was there an older gent stopped in and just started playing the piano. Really well. As a musically untalented person, I hate people who can do that. But deeply appreciated it in that space.

National Jazz Museum in Harlem Visiting the National Jazz Museum made me think about the regular reports of the death of jazz, which may even be deader than opera at this point. I wondered if having a museum to it serves as yet another piece of evidence for the demise of the form? They have a display with photos of young jazz musicians, and sorta reach toward hip-hop, kinda. But really nothing I saw there suggests anything innovative or interesting has happened in jazz since the 1970s.

I firmly believe that museums for specific groups or cultures can emphasize the aliveness of the cultures they represent. Both the Museum of Chinese in America and the National Museum of the American Indian do that in different ways and at different scales. But I don’t think the National Jazz Museum succeeds. If jazz isn’t dead yet, maybe the museum will kill it.

If you are in New York City and are curious about or interested in jazz, here are an assortment of things I’d suggest you do rather than visit the Jazz Museum:

Hear a show at Smoke, Jazz Standard, Village Vanguard, Minton’s or any of a dozen or so other clubs.
Go to Jazz at Lincoln Center. A bit more stuffy and formalized — more like a museum for jazz if you will, but Wynton Marsalis is the reigning king of the art form. And the Allen Room has the best view of any music venue in New York City.
Check out art from the Jazz Age–either the exemplary show currently at the Cooper-Hewitt, or any time at the Whitney.
Make a pilgrimage to the final resting places of Duke Ellington and Miles Davis in Woodlawn Cemetery.
Rent or stream Ken Burns’s PBS jazz series
Visit Louis Armstrong’s house in Corona, Queens

As for the Jazz Museum, maybe, possibly go to a performance there. But skip it otherwise.

For Reference:

Address	58 West 129th Street, Manhattan
Website	jazzmuseuminharlem.org
Cost	Free
Other Relevant Links	Time Out NY’s coverage of jazz venues Jazz at Lincoln Center (jazz.org) Ken Burns’s Jazz “A Great Day in Harlem”

June 29, 2017

China Institute

Edification value
Entertainment value
Should you go?
Time spent	38 minutes
Best thing I saw or learned	Inexplicably, the jade burial suit included round bits just where the nipples should go. Mysterious, as there were no jade abs or jade belly button. Still, it created a link across times and cultures from Han Dynasty China to Ancient Greece and Rome to the awful Val Kilmer Batman movies.

China Institute, New York The China Institute occupies second floor space in a fairly anonymous office building in the Financial District. It appears they will soon move to much more prominent ground-floor space, which should help drive awareness and attract visitors.

The Institute broadly recently turned 90 years old. Like the Japan Society and the Korean Cultural Center, it serves multiple purposes: hosting talks and language classes and, since 1966, a gallery as well. Unfortunately, the China Institute frowns on photography, so this will be a relatively un-visual review.

The gallery is reasonably sized, windowless, and neutral. The current exhibition divides into four themes or sub-topics, and to match that the curators divided the space into four rooms, using modular internal walls. It worked well.

Have a Good Afterlife

The space, then, is fine, and right now they’ve filled it with treasures. “Dreams of the Kings: A Jade Suit for Eternity, Treasures of the Han Dynasty from Xuzhou” displays examples of the funerary goods buried with a prominent Han Dynasty (206 B.C. to A.D. 220) ruler. It includes terra cotta figures selected from the army-in-miniature they buried kings with. While not as impressive as the life sized ones from Xi’an, these were much more portable. It also featured various other terra cotta servants, including a beautiful dancer, all long sleeves and sinuous curves. And finally, various beautiful and luxurious objects made of jade, bronze, and gold, all complementing the showstopper at the exhibition’s heart.

That would be the jade suit. Literally, a head-to-toe burial costume comprised of 4,248 little jade tiles with tiny holes pierced in the corners allowing each piece to be tied to the next with gold thread. According to contemporary beliefs, burying the nobility with appropriate jade accoutrements–handgrips, plugs for the nine orifices, and the full suit–helped ensure the preservation of the body (and therefore the soul) forever.

Marketing for China Institute Exhibition — Marketing a jade suit

I felt just a little bit suspicious about the state of preservation of the jade that makes up the suit. Other jade pieces in the show look…older. They definitely restored it significantly, but the exhibition doesn’t specify just how much. I’m no archaeologist and I’m not reviewing the suit, so I’ll not say more on that subject.

On the other hand, the well-written labels and wall texts explained things well and thoroughly. They even sneaked a pun into one of the section titles, “Rapt in Jade.” I doubt that works in Mandarin, but in English it made me smile.

Where else in New York can you take a tour through the tomb treasures of a 2,000 year old Han Dynasty ruler? Actually, by coincidence, one place: you can see very similar, but even more extravagant, artifacts at The Met’s “Age of Empires” show. But outside The Met, you’d have to go to China.

Under the Radar no More

The China Institute has flown under my radar in the past. I won’t let that happen going forward. Their ability to borrow the Han tomb artifacts from the Xuzhou Museum bespeaks strong connections with cultural institutions and government leaders. I’d compare it to the Onassis Center in terms of ambitions and capabilities.

Who should visit? The Met’s China galleries will always offer a better overview for those seeking the full sweep of Chinese art history. But sometimes you want something smaller and more focused, or you don’t have a whole day to spend on art overload. For sure anyone with an interest in Asian art should definitely go, and keep an eye on their calendar, too.

When it comes to prepping for the afterlife, I’m not convinced about having jade plugs stuffed in my nine orifices and being dressed in a jade suit. Judging from history, it seems like an invitation to grave robbers to mess you up. Three orifices plus some terra cotta dancers to keep me company would be plenty, thanks. I’ll share more on my preferred funerary practices when I get around to visiting Green-Wood and Woodlawn.

For Reference:

Address	100 Washington Street, Manhattan (entrance at 40 Rector)
Website	chinainstitute.org
Cost	General Admission: $10 (free for IDNYC members)
Other Relevant Links	Vice talks to Joel Schumacher about Batman Forever

June 28, 2017

National Museum of the American Indian Heye Center

Edification value
Entertainment value
Should you go?
Time spent	73 minutes
Best thing I saw or learned	A pair of Christian Louboutin boots laboriously decorated with antique glass beads by Jamie Okuma, of the Louiseño and Shoshone-Bannock tribes.

The National Museum of the American Indian’s George Gustav Heye Center is one of the Smithsonian Institution’s two New York outposts (along with the Cooper-Hewitt). It could be the museum with the longest name in the city.

You may think, “But doesn’t the Smithsonian have a National Museum of the American Indian on the Mall in D.C.?” Yes, it does. The Heye Center in New York came first, though. It started as the Museum of the American Indian, opening in Harlem way back in 1922, to display George Gustav Heye’s expansive collection of Native American arts and crafts. In due course, the Smithsonian took over. While it started planning for the D.C. museum (which opened in 2004) in the 1990s, it also opted to keep a New York outpost.

The Building

Today, the National Museum of the American Indian makes its home in a spectacular Beaux Arts building at the southern end of Broadway. The architect Cass Gilbert designed the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Customs House, which opened in 1907. (The name is the sole Hamilton connection, but I’m counting it!) A monument to commerce wrought in stone, it’s a far grander and more prominent building than Federal Hall National Memorial, which also was built as a customs house.

Allegorical Figures, Alexander Hamilton Customs House, New York

Truly it’s a magnificent piece of architecture, festooned with allegorical sculptures and heroic traders and all manner of artsy ornamentation. Daniel Chester French, the sculptor of Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial, did four figures representing the major regions of the world. Pictured here, fittingly, is “America.”

Inside some bits of historic grandeur remain, too. A matched set of swirly spiral staircases graces the corners. And the building centers on a –I know I already used the word “spectacular” but I’m using it again deliberately–spectacular oval rotunda. I wish they did more with that space! It features some benches, ratty carpeting, and brass light fixtures currently. But really it cries out to be a fancy cafe or something. I suspect the building’s landmark status prevents altering the rotunda to make better use of its potential. Too bad. The rotunda perimeter features Reginald Marsh murals of New York City, ships in the harbor, and historic figures important in trade in the United States– people like Columbus and Henry Hudson, whose presence seems more than a little ironic in the context of the building’s current use.

Oval Rotunda, National Museum of the American Indian, New York Indeed, the idea of turning a building focused on trade, from an era that unabashedly glorified the commercial impulses that ended up dispossessing the Native American tribes of their lands, into a museum for those nations…well. I find it pretty ironic.

Or perhaps fair and fitting: why not have a colonization work in the other direction for once?

The Exhibits

The Heye Center divides into three galleries. One of them hosts a permanent exhibit on the Native American nations. The other two feature changing exhibits. When I visited, one focused on Central American pottery, and the other looked at contemporary Native American fashion designers.

Native Fashion Now at the National Museum of the American Indian, New York

Dustin Martin, designer, “This is not a peacemaker” T-Shirt. I love an ironic Magritte reference…

I’m particularly impressed that the Heye Center would put on something like the fashion show. My stereotypical view of a Native American Museum would be all tradition and dusty artifacts. I like that they care to show how American Indians today carry their traditions forward, creating both beautiful things and successful businesses. It seems a through-line of the place that the objects on display represent more than just, well, museum pieces.

The permanent exhibit, titled “Infinity of Nations,” is somewhat dense and dusty, and tries valiantly to do justice to an entire continent’s worth of tribes and traditions in a fairly small space. That said, as a native of Hawai’i, I felt slightly vexed that the museum sticks just to the continent.

Dark colored texts call out commentaries from tribal members and other experts

However, I did very much like how the permanent collection intersperses descriptive wall texts with occasional signed ones, written by tribal representatives and other experts on Indian cultures. The specific voices create an immediacy that most museum texts lack, reminding visitors that these cultures still value these objects and their creators. For the same reason, I like how the collection includes contemporary arts and crafts. Finally, I also appreciate the way the curators deployed just a few touchscreens to offer deeper dives into key objects. It felt like they chose the right things.

Buffalo Hide Robe, National Museum of the American Indian, New York — Apsáalooke warrior’s exploit robe, Ft. Benton, Montana, ca. 1850.

On balance, the Heye Center seems to maintain a good relationship with Native American communities. Of course, I’ve only got their word on that. But (a) Heye paid for all the items in his collection, didn’t just loot them, (b) many seem to realize that had he not treasured and saved these things, they likely would no longer exist, and (c) the Museum allows the tribes liberal access to the collections, for both study and ceremonial purposes.

The Bottom Line

Everyone should visit the Heye Center. More than I expected, it depicts American Indian cultures as vital, living things. And it does so in creative ways, via (at least sometimes) inventive, unexpected exhibits. Even if you’ve been to the D.C. National Museum of the American Indian, coming here might still offer new things to look at and to think about. And the building is, as I may have mentioned, spectacular.

National Museum of the American Indian, New York — Infinity of Nations

For Reference:

Address	One Bowling Green, Manhattan
Website	si.edu
Cost	Free
Other Relevant Links	General Services Administration page on the architecture of the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Customs House

June 25, 2017

Park Avenue Armory

Edification value
Entertainment value
Should you go?
Time spent	43 minutes
Best thing I saw or learned	The surveillance show undermines its cautionary purpose by outlining a lot of frankly very silly spying technologies developed over the years. The CIA apparently spent $15m trying to surgically wire a feline for sound, to approach and unobtrusively listen to conversations. Sadly, “Acoustic Kitty” failed by being run over by a taxi on its first test deployment. Truly cat-astrophic.

Park Avenue Armory There were once 49 armories and arsenals in the Naked City (according to Wikipedia). Today 24 remain. One of the survivors now serves as a leading-edge arts and performance space. This is that one.

What’s an Armory anyway?

As the city grew, open air parade and training grounds for the militia (what we now call the National Guard) became increasingly scarce. So the government built a slew of armories and arsenals starting in the early 1800s and extending through to the early 1900s. These buildings often looked like castles or fortresses, and could take up their entire city block. Some of them included vast, open, interior spaces for practicing bayoneting and such.

Each military company used its armory as a sort of clubhouse, too, and so they became encrusted with awards, portraits, and other memorials to great men who served. Nowadays some armories remain in active use, but many have been decommissioned. The Park Avenue Armory, completed in 1888, served as the home to the Seventh Regiment. Adopted by a nonprofit, it underwent a massive restoration that continues to today, room by room, opening to the public in its new role in 2007.

Awards, Park Avenue Armory — Assorted Regimental Awards

A Castle for Art

Today the Park Avenue Armory is a fortress for the arts, both visual and performing. Many of the ground floor ceremonial rooms are open, and they contain wonders — ancient silver trophies, beautiful decoration and light fixtures. They are glorious feats of interior design, featuring Tiffany and virtually all the other great designers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Park Avenue Armory, NYC

And then there’s the Drill Hall. It’s an amazing space — 55,000 square feet with not a column in sight — to have at the disposal of art. But at the same time, it must be daunting as an artist to get commissioned to do something there. I read that once about the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern–it’s hard to do justice to the space. Just so with the Park Avenue Armory.

Just by way of comparison:

The Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall in London measures 500×75 feet, so 37,500 sq. feet, and it rises to a height of 115 feet.
The Drill Hall at the Armory is shorter, with “only” an 85-foot ceiling, but much larger in area, measuring 55,000 square feet.
And just to round out the size-off, Grand Central’s main hall measures 33,000 square feet, with a 125-foot ceiling. Bottom line, the Drill Hall is BIG.

Hansel and Gretel

The current Park Avenue Armory show, called “Hansel and Gretel,” typifies the difficulties of filling the space. Ai Wei Wei along with architects Jacques Hertzog and Pierre de Meuron collaborated on a commentary on the surveillance state. They did so via a complex technological deployment whereby visitors wander around in a very dark Drill Hall, while drones whir overhead (on tethers so they can’t decapitate anyone if they malfunction), and infrared cameras capture images of visitors which they then project onto the floor of the hall in real time. You see photos of yourself, in grainy black and white, with red boxes picking out your appendages and such.

It’s…interesting? But there’s no reason for it to be in the Armory, as opposed to a much smaller place. I felt lost, wandering in the dark, waiting for something more exciting to happen. And the darkness defeats the Drill Hall’s grandeur, the whole point of going there.

Caveat: Perhaps the experience is more compelling when the Drill Hall is full of people. I went on a weekday afternoon and it was quite sparse.

Following the wander in the dark, visitors then enter the smaller historic rooms where they have a gift shop, a tiny snack bar, and a bunch of tablets that tell more about the history of state surveillance, drone strikes, etc. Which you can do at home, for free, here.

Bottom Line

I’m happy that I’m reviewing the Armory itself and not the Hansel and Gretel installation (my review: skip it!). Everyone should visit the Armory. The restored meeting and administration rooms positively glow. If you can take a guided tour of the building I heartily recommend that. And whatever they fill it with, assuming the lights are on the Drill Hall will take your breath away.

Park Avenue Armory, NYC

Wandering through these historic, once-dusty rooms, I imagine the era when our municipal and national security depended on forts along the waterfront and arsenals inland. When the worst we had to worry about were invading naval fleets or anarchist insurrections. I don’t want to sugar coat other problems of the past, and I would never downplay the threat of anarchists. But from the perspective of security (and surveillance, too), I envy those simpler, more innocent times.

For Reference:

Address	643 Park Avenue, Manhattan
Website	armoryonpark.org
Cost	General Admission: $15 (exhibit) and $15 (building tour)
Other Relevant Links	Untapped Cities on 22 of the remaining NYC armories Hansel and Gretel (Exhibition) website

June 25, 2017

Ukrainian Institute of America

Edification value
Entertainment value
Should you go?
Time spent	69 minutes
Best thing I saw or learned	Max Vityk’s “Outcrops” series of tactile, colorful, geologic abstract paintings installed in the third floor library and dining room. Sometimes abstract art clashes with classical decor, but these go better than they have any right to. Compliments to the curator for a beautiful installation.

Ukrainian Institute, New York

Three First Impressions

The first thing you notice walking into the Ukrainian Institute on a balmy day in June is the warmth. No air conditioning. Which is okay — fancy Fifth Avenue mansions (and the Ukrainian Institute occupies one of the fanciest) have thick walls and high ceilings to keep them reasonably comfortable on all but the hottest days.

The second thing you notice is the quiet. They keep the front door of the house locked, you have to buzz for admission. Someone eventually emerges from the non-public (and I bet air conditioned) offices to let you in and find out what you’re about. She’s happy to admit you, though a little…surprised maybe?… I’m not sure the Institute gets many visitors. (There were three others while I looked around, at least one of whom spoke Ukrainian.) She tells you that the admission fees quoted on the desk are suggested, and whatever you want to pay is fine.

And the third thing you notice is the amazingness of the interior, and how much of it you, now admitted as a guest, have available to roam around in. I expected a single gallery space with a small, obscure show, like the Czech Center or Japan Society. Instead, I got four floors of beautifully cared-for Gilded Age rooms, with Ukrainian or Ukrainian-related art very thoughtfully integrated into the fabric of the place.

Ukrainian Institute, New York

The House (Condensed Version)

The Institute makes its home in the 1899 Fletcher-Sinclair House, designed by C. P. H. Gilbert for wealthy (duh) manufacturer Isaac D. Fletcher. It occupies a corner lot on Fifth Avenue, diagonally across from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I’d call the exterior “extreme French Gothic”: extravagant stonework with flowers and garlands and dragons and such, while the interior feels more mellow, tasteful, and comfortable according to early twentieth century standards.

“…Comfortable, by early twentieth century standards.”

Fletcher died in 1917 and left his fabulous art collection and the house to his neighbor across the way. And unlike Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney’s collection, the Met Board accepted. But then a few years later, not really needing an opulent mansion (I suspect the Met today would find something to do with it), the Met sold the house. (It kept the art). An oil man named Harry Sinclair lived there with his family for a decade. Then the very last direct descendants of Peter Stuyvesant moved in starting in the 1930s. After they died off, the house went on the market in the 1950s, just as William Dzus’s fledgling Ukrainian Institute needed a home. Which it got for the unbelievable auction price of $225,000 (the 1955 Times headline reads “Ukrainians Take Fifth Avenue Mansion.”) I’m sure the place needed work, but what a bargain!

A Top-to-Bottom View

Ukrainian Institute, New York — Vertigo!

Here’s what I saw, from top to bottom:

Fourth Floor: Ukrainian Socialist Realism from the Jurii Maniichuk and Rose Brady Collection — impressive pieces from a more Soviet time, including a fantastic, huge, triumphalist painting of Khrushchev greeting Yuri Gagarin, unfortunately jammed into a hallway.

Mykhailo Khmelko, “Motherland Greets a Hero,” 1961

Also Fourth Floor: The Sumyk Collection of sculptures by Ukrainian-American Alexander Archipenko, which gets a room of its own.

Third Floor: Max Vityk’s “Outcrops.” As mentioned previously, I just loved the art and the installation. Each piece’s title comes from one of the geologic ages of the Earth. The description talks about appreciating them just as highly textural abstractions, but also as a spiritual or environmental account, “an antidote to the tyranny of time, or chronarchy…” Down with the chronarchy!

Library, Ukrainian Institute, NYC — Contemplating the Chronarchy, More of Max Vityk’s “Outcrops” series

Second Floor: Portrait photographs of WWII Veterans by Sasha Maslov. Rather wonderful pictures of these ordinary men (and a few women) in their unassuming homes, accompanied by quotes from interviews with them that reveal each as extraordinary. Maslov traveled the world to take these pictures, of both Axis and Allied veterans. He defined the word broadly, including some people who didn’t fight, but who nonetheless were involved in the war (and really, who wasn’t?)

First Floor: A brief introduction to Ukraine, the place, its people, history and culture. It includes a nice touchscreen display for those who want a deeper dive, and an overview of notable Ukrainian Americans.

This is my second Ukrainian place for this project (see: Ukrainian Museum). I get why they both exist. Different wealthy patrons wanted to celebrate their heritage and raise the profile of their culture. But if anyone asked me, I would recommend the Institute over the Museum by a wide margin.

A House Museum AND a Ukrainian Museum

I suggest thinking of the Ukrainian Institute as a house museum as much as a museum of Ukrainian art and culture. As an opulent Fifth Avenue mansion-turned-museum, it stands in good company with the Jewish Museum (also by Gilbert), the Cooper-Hewitt, the Neue Gallerie, and the Frick Collection. But with relatively fewer modifications, it feels much more homey.

It lacks the original furniture, but retains amazing amounts of period detail. The rooms aren’t labeled, but they don’t need labels. The ballroom (of course it has one) still looks like a ballroom, the library unmistakably remains a library. Even better, there are no barriers or blockades, and very few “please do not touch” signs. The woodwork smells pleasantly of oil or polish, and has a luster of well-preserved age. The wood floors aren’t pristine, but are much more beautiful and interesting for that.

The rooms have been re-tasked with sharing Ukrainian art and culture (broadly defined), but without losing their former selves. I deeply appreciate that.

I also appreciate that the Institute takes care to relate the story of the house. It provides a quick summary in the ground floor “Intro to Ukraine” section. It also offers a much more thorough version of the tale (complete with newspaper quotes and other primary sources) in a series of panels in a fourth floor room.

Last Thoughts

The Ukrainian Institute may be one of the best-kept secrets of New York that is still actually being kept. Except by me, I guess. Sorry? Anyone who enjoys a taste of Gilded Age splendor (and who doesn’t?) must visit. Even the warm summer temperatures just add to the authenticity. Though I realize that the wealthy Fifth Avenue Gilded Agers did have air conditioning. They just called it “spending August at my Newport cottage.”

Based on my visit, the art on view will be worth seeing, too. And as a bonus you get to learn something about Ukraine and its people.

I’m surprised and delighted with this place, and I feel confident that art and architecture lovers will feel the same.

For Reference:

Address	2 East 79th Street, Manhattan
Website	ukrainianinstitute.org
Cost	General Admission: $8 (suggested)
Other Relevant Links	A neat history of the house with a behind-the-scenes tour on the Big Old Houses blog

June 22, 2017June 22, 2025

Aperture Foundation

Edification value
Entertainment value
Should you go?
Time spent	22 minutes
Best thing I saw or learned	A picture from a series of night-in-Manhattan photographs by Richard Rinaldi. It made me think of rewriting The Red Balloon to feature a lonely club kid befriended by a semi-sentient disco ball. From Richard Rinaldi: Manhattan Sunday

Update as of June, 2025: The Aperture Foundation’s exhibit space in Manhattan seems like it’s no longer putting on shows. Aperture continues to host exhibits in other cities; perhaps it will return to NYC someday.

The Aperture Foundation is well known as a publisher: of the eponymous quarterly magazine, fine photography books, and photographic art prints. It also has a gallery space in New York as well, where it shows, unsurprisingly, smallish exhibitions of contemporary photography.

Places like the Aperture Foundation straddle that ill-defined line between museums and commercial galleries. As such, I’m sometimes unsure I should review them. Still, as a not-for-profit foundation, they’re not in it to rake in the dough, so I will err on the side of inclusion.

Aperture Foundation Like the nearby International Print Center, Aperture occupies a classic West Chelsea gallery space. Super stark white walls, unfinished ceiling, scattered columns, industrial floor. They had the space wide open when I visited, but it feels very flexible.

What I Saw

Alessandra Sanguinetti at Aperture Foundation — Alessandra Sanguinetti, “Ivana, Jardin des Tuileries, Paris,” 2016

I saw two shows. First, “Le Gendarme Sur La Colline,” pictures of changing life in France by Alessandra Sanguinetti, and second a small series of works by Richard Rinaldi titled “Manhattan Sunday.” The latter’s gimmick is that Rinaldi took all the photos on a Sunday morning between midnight and noon.

I liked, but did not love, both shows. Sanguinetti and Rinaldi each has a good eye for composition, and both included portraits and genre scenes and landscapes. Both also had a narrative or even journalistic flavor to them. But neither contained any pictures that will haunt my dreams–or that I’d want to own and look at every day.

Who Should Go?

I don’t think everyone needs to go to the Aperture Foundation. Like so many museums, partly it depends on what they’re showing–some photographers would of course justify the trip. Aspiring and professional photographers must make a pilgrimage there. And collectors of contemporary photography, too. But for the average fan of photography, or of art, I’d say consider skipping Aperture. Plenty of other places (like the International Center of Photography, or The Met) will serve fine if you just casually like the photographic arts.

I’ll offer one other reason to go, though. I have not said much about museum shops in these reviews (although I did rave about the design shops at MAD and the Cooper Hewitt). But Aperture’s bookstore takes up a healthy amount of their space. It’s fantastic, and of course heavy on their books. If you find yourself needing a fancy art photography book…well, actually head to the Strand. But if you find yourself in that need in far west Chelsea, go to the Aperture Foundation and I’m sure they will hook you up.

For Reference:

Address	547 W. 27th Street, 4th Floor, Manhattan
Website	aperture.org
Cost	Free
Other Relevant Links	The Strand Bookstore

June 9, 2017June 9, 2017

Morris-Jumel Mansion

Edification value
Entertainment value
Should you go?
Time spent	77 minutes
Best thing I saw or learned	The mansion has recently undergone a major wall upgrade, installing recreations of historic wallpaper based on Mme. Jumel’s descriptions. The Octagonal Drawing Room features an amazing pattern of clouds against a blue sky. I must remember that for the next time I renovate MY octagonal drawing room.

The way to the Morris-Jumel Mansion takes you up the gentle slope of Sylvan Terrace, a single block long and one of the most unlikely streets in all of Manhattan. Paved with perfect cobblestones, both sides of the street consist of a matched set of beautiful, seemingly mint condition, wooden townhouses from the 19th century, all period charm and lovingly preserved detail. It’s a miracle that it survived, though the big white house on the hill at the end of the terrace is more miraculous still: the Morris-Jumel Mansion has lasted longer than any other home on the island, dating to 1765. That makes it about 30 years older than the Dyckman farmhouse, just a bit to the north. And instead of the Dyckman’s rustic, humble charm, Colonel Roger Morris built to his “summer villa” to impress.

Morris Jumel Mansion

Three stories (four if you include the basement), the grand house featured a columned portico and the first octagonal room in the country. Col. Morris and his wife, loyal to the British, abandoned the place during the revolution, leading to its moment in the spotlight of history. More on that later. In 1810, Stephen Jumel, an immigrant from France, bought the mansion. His wife, the smart and colorful Eliza Jumel (nee Bowen), has the strongest personality in the house today.

Madame Jumel

Portrait of Eliza Jumel, Artist Unknown, 1832-1833

Eliza Bowen came from a poor family in Rhode Island. Not only did she find in M. Jumel a successful businessman to marry, but she turned out to be something of a real estate tycoon herself. The Jumels may not have been welcome in high society (being nouveau riche and from the wrong backgrounds), but they lived well. They spent time in France, and Madame Jumel (always “Madame,” it seems, never “Missus”) returned with (so she claimed) Napoleon’s bedroom set, and strong ideas about decorating her summer villa. No one’s quite sure if it really is Napoleon’s bedroom set, but just the fact that she’d tell people that brings her to life. She lived in the house until she died in 1865, apparently becoming quite eccentric over time.

Hamilton and History

As with all buildings of that vintage, my first question related to my favorite Founding Father. A.Ham indeed spent time there at least twice. Once during the period from September to October 1776 when Washington made the mansion his headquarters, before the British drove him and the Continental Army out of Manhattan. And again in 1790 when Washington held a cabinet dinner meeting there.

Also, the notorious A.Burr actually lived here–Madame Jumel married him in 1832, just a year after M. Jumel’s death. Briefly. It seems she got along with him no better than Hamilton did, though at least he didn’t shoot her. Rather, she divorced him. Practically unthinkable in that time, it confirms that he really must’ve been a colossal jerk.

ALSO also, Lin-Manuel Miranda asked if he could spend some time in the mansion while he wrote “Hamilton,” the better to immerse himself in the period vibe. So some portion of the musical came into the world in Aaron Burr’s bedroom at the Morris-Jumel Mansion.

That’s about as Hamiltonian as it gets.

The House Today

Morris-Jumel Mansion Display — Odds and ends, Morris-Jumel Mansion

In addition to Napoleon’s alleged bedstead, the house has some original furniture, with about six rooms fully decorated, and another couple currently undergoing restoration. The kitchen space in the basement is open, but without much to see. As a fan of old kitchens, I hope they do something with it eventually. It does contain an odd display of a toaster, a chamberpot, a bedwarmer, and a teacup. Trying to figure out what those things have in common started to give me a headache.

iPad Holder, Morris Jumel Mansion — Insert Tablet Here

Each room has a rather handsome piece of modern wood furniture–a stand or a railing–designed to cradle an iPad. But no tablets in sight. I asked about that–whether it was an attempt at deploying technology that had failed. Turns out it’s still a work in progress. The tablets, when installed, will provide deep dives on individual pieces of furniture, paintings, and other objects. My skepticism of technology for technology’s sake in this sort of setting remains strong, but I like the idea of using screens to tailor descriptions to the needs and interests of visitors, enabling them to engage more deeply.

Trish, who was working the admission desk/gift shop that day, kindly answered my myriad questions, about technology and about history as well. She told me that it opened to the public in 1906, like the Van Cortlandt House a project of the Colonial Dames of New York. I asked how it survived, and she said Washington gets the credit: although only for a month, the fact that the mansion served as his headquarters earned its preservation. Indeed, when it first opened, the place served as a sort of shrine to Washington and the Revolution.

Only more recently has the story pivoted to focus on Madame Jumel, who after all lived there a lot longer, and about whose occupancy there’s a lot more historical information and documentation. And Napoleon’s bedroom set.

Morris Jumel Mansion, Harlem, from Sunken Garden The mansion’s vast land holdings at one point stretched the (albeit pretty narrow that far north) width of Manhattan. All that land is now Washington Heights, of course. And yet, its commanding hilltop location, surrounded by tiny, lovely Roger Morris Park, offers a taste of the country to this day. The grounds burst with rosebushes and even include a small sunken garden. I could easily see going back just to sit there and read a book.

Who should visit the Morris-Jumel Mansion? Hamiltonians, for sure. Fans of old wallpaper, and fans of rich eccentric 19th century madames. Those into colonial architecture and house museums. The three house museums of upper Manhattan (Dyckman Farmhouse, here, and the Hamilton Grange) provide a varied look at life in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Visiting all three of them would make for a highly edifying afternoon.

For Reference:

Address	Roger Morris Park, 65 Jumel Terrace, Manhattan
Website	morrisjumel.org
Cost	General Admission: $10
Other Relevant Links	Atlas Obsura on the Morris-Jumel Mansion