Outing to Jersey City and other local attractions

In our desire to have a more functional refrigerator in our apartment, we went in search of a large department store to see more floor models than what we were seeing in Manhattan based stores.  Space is so tight in the city, they just don't have the room to display much.  So off we went to the Sears in Jersey City which is in a big mall just after you exit the Holland Tunnel.  The Holland Tunnel takes you under the Hudson River and brings you up in New Jersey, Jersey City to be precise. Bob and I love malls in general and this one was a pretty good one by our standards though you have to pay for parking which kind of sucked, I've never paid for parking at a mall. The mall is managed by the Simon development group that also manages a couple of big malls in the Seattle area so it felt very familiar. Kind of like suspending time and space, we could have been in any mall in America.  All the tweeners and teens hanging around, boys and girls scoping each other out, families with kids in strollers, couples hand in hand. This mall had a really great food court--an important dimension to any really good mall. The PATH train from Manhattan makes a direct stop at the mall though we drove this time. We found the refrigerator we were looking for, got a good deal on it, bought a few more odds and ends and checked out the food court where we snacked on a couple of sushi rolls and a highly overpriced Mrs. Field's cookie. Driving home, we had to take a slightly different route back to our garage because I had a coupon for a discounted car wash, and our car, despite being in a covered garage (or supposedly anyway) was totally covered with all kinds of white gunk, I think from snow removal procedures and desperately needed a good washing. Taking the car in had us diverting to a different street to head east and it wound up being a good route though it took us smack dab in the middle of Times Square where we were sandwiched between HUGE tour buses and city buses. Bob did a great job manuevering between these big buses so we weren't squished and still able to stay in the lane we needed to make our turn at the right street. Always an adventure trying to get to our garage space. The refrigerator gets delivered on Wednesday. I have to say that for once, we had a really great experience with a salesperson. In Manhattan, most sales people in the big home supply stores are just awful, so unhelpful and uninterested.

I've started to put my New York Public library card to good use.  Bob read an article in the New York Magazine about Elia Kazan and a new set of DVDs being released of vintage movies he directed.  Instead of paying $200 to buy them, we are checking them out from the library.  We watched Splendor in the Grass and On the Waterfront.  Both great classics and interestingly both have significant religious themes to them. Natalie Wood, Warren Beatty, Marlon Brando---so amazing to see them at the beginning of their careers. I've now requested, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, East of Eden, and A Face in the Crowd. I also requested Despicable Me, I am 1016th in line for one of 240 copies! When I check in the movies we just watched I will go back at a time when I can take a tour of the library. They have a number of different exhibits featured throughout the library at any given time so I am hoping to get to know my way around the library to take better advantage of all it has to offer.

Today we went to the Whitney Museum of American Art to see an exhibit by Edward Hopper. I've always loved Edward Hopper -- his work is very psychological -- how he depicts isolation and loneliness is powerful and timeless. His use of lighting and depicting everyday American scenes is a wondrous talent. See
http://whitney.org/Exhibitions/ModernLife for more info if interested.  While there we also viewed a very unique exhibit by Charles LeDay.  He specializes in making highly detailed tiny and endlessly numerous  representations of all kinds of pottery, clothing, and other objects. His work is obsessive and amazing and some of it, quite funny with titles of many a play on words.  I took a a couple of pictures before I was shut down by the museum security. Check them out to see the level of whimsey and obsessiveness with his work http://whitney.org/Exhibitions/CharlesLeDray.  Bob and I very much enjoyed both exhibits, especially the Hopper exhibit.

ceiling lights as you walk into the Whitney foyer

imagines THOUSANDS more of these all individually painted bright colors

and THOUSANDS more painted black

titled Lace Underwear

After the Whitney, we walked to the Metropolitan Museum, they are only about a 10 minute walk apart which is so great. I love the concentration of museums in one area of Manhattan. It would be the one reason I could live on the Upper Eastside. We went to see a furniture exhibit of the works of Charles Rohlfs who preceded and overlapped with Stickley in the arts and crafts movement of furniture design (our Seattle house was of the Craftsmans tradition) http://www.metmuseum.org/special/se_event.asp?OccurrenceId={9FF56D61-D1D2-4050-BD35-37FD804A580D}  and the photography exhibit of the works of Stieglitz, Strand, and Steichen
http://www.metmuseum.org/special/se_event.asp?OccurrenceId={EC47F3BF-9FEB-444B-BBF6-E81E4748C49F}

Both were extraordinary in their own way. After viewing such amazing photography it inspires you to want to take pictures. If we could have taken any one of the photos, we would have taken the one by Steichen of the Flatiron building. It's so captures the grandeur and sophistication of New York. 

We took the subway to the museums, below are a few shots of the subway and also a look at what's left over of the snowfall and the holidays.

hard to make out but trees and trees lit along Park Avenue

                                          Still dealing with the snow pushed to the curb

                                          Doggies are having a hard time finding a place to do their business

Christmas is OVER! Trees tossed to the curb.

Tomorrow we make our second foray into Brooklyn, though we will essentially cover the same ground--Park Slope area. We are visiting a new New Yorker of two months, Lena May, and her very proud parents.