Midtown & MoMA

We were expecting rain today and rain we got, a steady drizzle all day as well as being warm and humid.

A perfect day to be indoors so we headed to the Museum of Modern Art, or MoMA to its friends. It is billed as offering the finest and most complete collection of late C19th and C20th art anywhere and was opened in 1929. It was busy but well laid out with lots of space and many paintings we were familiar with including The Starry Night which was a huge crowd pleaser and its daytime companion The Olive Trees.

I had worried that fitting four art galleries into our trip might have been pushing my luck, but instead by the time we got to MoMA Joanna was pleased to spot another flag and a whole room of Pollocks and Chris found another Hopper so everyone was happy.

Ready for lunch, we headed for the huge food court below Grand Central Terminal where between us we had a hotdog, a pretzel, a slice of pizza and a steak sandwich. Grand Central Terminal is designed in the Beaux Arts style and with 44 platforms, is the largest station in the world. The main concourse has a barrel vaulted ceiling painted with a winter night sky of 2500 stars and is huge.

The four-faced brass clock on top of the information booth is a popular meeting point and apparently conceals a secret spiral staircase that leads to another information booth on the lower level.

The Grand Central Market sells every gourmet food imaginable.

There is even a spot you can stand on the lower level 20m across from someone else and the acoustics of the ceiling enable you to hear each other whisper … so we had fun with that!

The striking marble fronted New York Public Library was next and we went for a wander inside.

The most important stop was the Children’s Reading Room, where Winnie the Pooh and his friends from Hundred Acre Wood have been living for over 30 years, all in all relatively recent immigrants!

We also saw the Periodicals Room, the main Reading Room and Astor Hall.

Last stop was the Chrysler Building which was briefly the world’s tallest building but today is more cherished for its amazing Art Deco beauty with car motif friezes, hood-ornament gargoyles and radiator-grille spire, not that you can see any of that from street level so we had to content ourselves with a peek in the lobby.

As we’ve been travelling round on the subway, we’ve noticed a fair bit of art, mainly mosaics, and here is a selection. I suspect there is a whole lot more but it will just have to wait till next time … along with everything else that we’ve missed as that is all we have time for this trip.

We returned to the B&B and later went for dinner just down the road at The Grange where Chris had an amazing curry roasted romanesco broccoli and Joanna and I had the best filet mignon ever. A great finale to our time in New York where we have seen so much, walked around 50 miles in six days and had great fun together.

We’ll go our separate ways after breakfast tomorrow … Joanna back to Sydney while we continue to Boston … but it is only 85 days till Joanna in home to England for a Christmas!