A TENtative First Look at New York City!

At our recent cohort meeting in the park, Ms. L gave us our first assignment. We were to come up with a list of our “top ten” places we wanted to visit in New York while we are there. She told us the only requirement was that there be at least two museums included in our list. The rest was up to us. 

I spent a lot of time carefully thinking and doing a lot of online research to narrow down my list of top 100 things down to a list of top 10 things to do. New York is a vast city and the island of Manhattan has so much to offer. It was difficult to eliminate the multitude of amazing opportunities available to us all. In the end I decided on these ten things. Where some of these choices I have made come from a touristy “Oh I HAVE to go there” standpoint, a few of my choices are motivated by my interest in history and photography. I hope we will be able to visit a few of my choices while we are there! My list is in no particular order, and I would love to visit all these places if I could. 

Times Square at night is almost twice as incredible looking!

1) My first choice is a rather obvious one: Times Square. This is one of those places you just cannot go to New York and not visit at least once. With theaters, great stores and an equal amount of great restaurants, Time Square is one of the most lively spots in New York City. However I do not want to go there just to spend my money, I want to go there to take photographs. The buildings covered in billboards, lights flashing everywhere, yellow taxis, people, they all make for an amazing photographic opportunity. If anything, I think it would be even more amazing to visit Times Square twice, once during the day and once during the evening. When it is dark out the lights and the signs will pop that much more and make for an unforgettable sight.

2) My second choice is also motivated by photography, but is slightly more obscure. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is a pillar of architectural beauty. I love taking photographs of buildings, and I think the Guggenheim is just asking to have its photograph taken. The museum also has a number of interesting exhibits that will be on view while I am going to be in New York. These include an art piece, by the well known contemporary artist James Turrell, using the main circular rotunda of the museum and showering it with natural and artificial light, constantly changing the colors in the room. The Guggenheim Museum was designed by one of my favorite architects, Frank Lloyd Wright. This museum looks incredible, and I love the way that it looks. I even have a special edition Lego version of the museum on a shelf in my room!

The Guggenheim Museum.

3) My third choice is also a museum, this one more widely known: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Met is, like Times Square, a symbol of New York City. It is one of those places you just have to go to. I really would love to visit the Met and see its extensive collection of famous paintings, sculpture and photographs which are on display (it would take multiple trips to see it all...). In fact, the Met has more than 2 million works of art throughout it, all spanning over 5000 years of human history. Doing further research I found that there will be an exhibit while I am in there of the Civil War and American Art. The Civil War is one of my favorite topics to learn about in American history. Not only is the Met a staple of New York, but it houses the story of humanity as a whole. I love learning about history, and what better way to learn it then to see it in person!

4) This choice is also motivated by photography, and the desire to see something I will never forget: the NYC skyline. Now when most people want to see the skyline of New York they go straight to the Empire State building. I only have one problem with that. If you are on the Empire State building than it will not be in any of your photographs! What is New York without the Empire State building? I would much rather take the elevator to the top floors of Rockefeller Center. They have viewing decks on the 67, 69, and 70th floors, perfect for a view of the city with its most iconic building still in the frame.

Who does not want to see this sight!?

A beautiful sandwich from Katz's.

5) What is New York without its delis? Coming from the Bay Area where there are little to no good old fashioned delis, I have been craving a good corned beef sandwich on rye bread, stacked high with meat. The place to go is Katz’s Delicatessen. Katz’s has been around for a long time in New York, and even though it is on the opposite side of Manhattan (on the lower east side) from Columbia, the food they serve is worth it. Everything from bagels and matzo ball soup to the largest sandwiches I have ever seen, Katz’s deli is one of those delis that I have been craving. The store front does not look like much so I will include a picture of the food instead...you will see why I want to go!

6) My next choice is the Statue of Liberty and a visit to Ellis Island. Not only is the top of the Statue of Liberty, along with the whole statue itself, PERFECT for taking incredible photographs, but the island is rich in its history. Millions of immigrants passed by the Statue of Liberty as they came as immigrants into the United States. The museum on Ellis Island tells the story of those immigrants and lets you explore what their lives were like. The museum also houses a huge data base of names of almost all the people who passed through the customs and immigration house on Ellis Island. Here you can search your name to see if any of your relatives came through the island and saw the Statue of Liberty themselves. This is both an incredible lesson in history, and a great way to spend an afternoon!

7) A more serious option of mine is the 9/11 memorial and museum, built directly where the World Trade Center Towers once stood. I was in kindergarten on September 11 and what I clearly remember, as a five year old, was that school was cancelled on that day. But I do know that the impact of 9/11 is still affecting me today. I have seen photographs taken during the attack, and I have read books and articles about how America reacted afterwards, but to see this memorial in real life is entirely different. The world and the United States has changed since the 9/11 attacks, but it is important to never forget that day and those who lost their lives, and I think it will be an emotional experience to see where that change originated. 

This photograph shows the emotion found at the 9/11 memorial.

8) My next choice is a park. No it is not Central Park if that is what you expected. I want to visit the relatively knew High Line Park. The High Line is one of the more unique parks in the world today in that it is not on the ground. The High Line is built over an old decommissioned freight rail line through the West Side of Manhattan. The park has grass and walkways for bikes and pedestrians, flowers and benches, and all of it is way above ground level. An added bonus is that every summer the High Line hires unique and interesting food carts and vendors to sell their cuisine in the park. Maintained and created by the neighborhoods’ residents, the High Line is an interesting park that looks normal...except its above ground! 

9) Getting close to the end...my ninth choice to visit in NYC is the United Nations. The United Nations is the proof that different nations can indeed get together to solve their problems. It is also in New York City! I would love to visit the United Nations given my interest in law, history and politics and I think it would be a very educational experience as well. To see the place where almost all the countries of the world get together and work together to maintain order and peace in the world would be both amazing and excellent to witness and plus the building is worthy of a few snapshots!

10) My final choice. I chose the third museum because I like art. This time I went for a more contemporary museum, the Museum of Modern Art or MoMA. MoMA is a central hub in the world of contemporary art, with modern paintings sculptures and photographs. In fact MoMA has photography collections from before the 1920s to the present year of 2013. The museum also has an incredible glass facade that would be excellent to take pictures of. I think MoMA would also contrast very will with the ancient history inside the Met. It would show the comparison that can be made between the old and the new.

I am so excited to be a part of the ILC and now that I have done my research, I am even more excited to visit as many of these places as possible as well as ones suggested by my cohort. I think this assignment was a great way to begin to learn about NYC and all that it has to offer. Thank you Ms. L for coming up with this assignment!  I only wish our program could be longer so I could ensure that I visit all these places and more.