NEW YORK CITY: THE WHITNEY MUSEUM AND LITTLE ISLAND

May 2023

New York City is possibly one of the best places in the United States if you are an art lover. There are at least 36 art museums in the city (see this list) and a bazillion galleries. On this trip we spent a bit of time in the Whitney Museum of American Art, which contains more than 23,000 works of art by more than 3,400 artists. 

We began with the retrospective for American artist our son is the studio manager for. 

It was especially fun to see this show, which took up two floors of the Whitney, because of our son's connection to it. Here are a few representative pieces:

Make-Believe

Contagious Unemployment 
(and the two below)

Wrapping Things Up

Creative Hands

NEW YORK CITY: ARCHITECTURE BOAT TOUR AND CENTRAL PARK BIRDING

 May 2023

There are two things we did in New York City that we were not familiar with before this trip: an architecture boat tour and a birding tour of Central Park.

1.   MANHATTAN ARCHITECTURE BOAT TOUR

Andrew and Michaela had recently taken a boat tour around Manhattan Island with a focus on the city's architecture. They loved it and encouraged us to take a similar tour while they were at work the day we arrived in NYC. We thought it might be a good way to work through our jet lag after our red-eye flight, so we booked tickets. 

It's been hard for me to envision Manhattan as an island, so this trip really helped me get my geographical bearings. Separation between the island and the mainland isn't very wide at the top, but the Harlem River definitely separates Manhattan from the mainland. 

There were about 50 passengers, each group seated at their own table. At some point during the cruise, we were served a soft drink and a snack, part of the tour price.

We had a guide who I believe was an architect himself who narrated our "cruise" around the island with details about architecture and engineering landmarks from all eras of the city's history. He was well-amplified, very knowledgeable, and had a great delivery.

We started our tour at Chelsea Pier (horizontal arrow about 1/3 the way up from the bottom, west side) and traveled clockwise around Manhattan.