Page 4 of 6
New York, New York
Stealing bits of wisdom from the shelf, turned prisons into prisms on the self
This is the second page in a row that starts with a tour (through Open House New York) and Cass Gilbert's landmark Woolworth Building in Lower Manhattan., except this time it’s not actually a tour of Cass Gilbert's landmark Woolworth Building in Lower Manhattan.
Just a few weeks before the actual Open House New York weekend, the fine people at Open House New York offered a tour of 7 World Trade Center, the first tower rebuilt at the site. The tour started at a lower level presentation center, before letting us head up to a higher unoccupied floor to check out the building and, more importantly, to check out the views.
The views from 7 World Trade Center remind you of why the original tower’s observation deck was so great, even though you are far lower and a bit off the main portion of the superblock site. Although from that height you have the advantage of getting a view down at the recently open memorial, with its bottomless reflecting pool and still growing trees.
2011 is a big anniversary year, which starts to explain all of these World Trade Center pictures. I never worked at the original World Trade Center towers, but I was through them all the time. The PATH train connecting into Hoboken and Newark was my preferred way into the city for years (I still ten years later hate driving in unless I absolutely have to), and I was familiar enough with the site that it was difficult not being there for a decade. Sure, you could stand at the edges or stand down below it, but with the memorial finally open, for the first time in a decade, you can actually go to the World Trade Center again.
The memorial itself is big and impressive, the fountains have a feel in person that is kind of hard to describe until you approach them in person.
Across the river at Liberty State Park in New Jersey, they also installed their own memorial to the World Trade Center. Called “Empty Sky” and designed by Fredrick Schwartz, it is two reflective walls that (from exactly the right spot) show the locations of the missing towers on the skyline across the Hudson. More impressively, walking through and between the two mirrored walls under a sunny sky creates an interesting effect where the edges of everything in front of you start to disappear. A bit unnerving, but maybe that’s the point.
And now for something completely different.
For $12 you can get a day pass to the preserve at Mohonk in New Paltz, New York, which is a different property that surrounds the far busier and far more precious grounds of the Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz, New York. The day pass allows you to walk and climb all of the trails that you can but doesn't allow you to step too close to (or in) the actual resort. That $12 still lets you walk as many trails as you can, and in my half day visit I racked up nine miles and a thousand foot elevation gain. Not too bad for a couple of hours work.
My nine mile loop at Mohonk circled some amazing cliffs and ascended Skytop (with its big stone tower), but the real fun was looking at and getting close to the lake. At every turn there are little shelters, buildings that were shown to me in my first year of architecture school to explain the very German idea of gestalt, one of those things that was apparently important for first year architecture students to know.
