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New York, New York
Now I'm riding all over this island looking for something to open my eyes
We’re finishing up the 2014 Weekend Trips Slideshow in Manhattan and starting in January, where Broadway (or at least a few blocks of Broadway near Times Square) are being taken over for a Super Bowl fan fest. The game is being played outdoors at MetLife Stadium at the Meadowlands in New Jersey, which was designed without a retractable dome because, well, I have no good solid reason. Let’s just say it was cheaper at the time to build something far less useable and profitable.
At least we’re now inside out of all that cold. This is the Cathedral of St John the Divine, the beautiful, unfinished cathedral in Morningside Heights that is destined to be unfinished throughout time. No one really wants to finish it since it’s already good enough as it is. And not only is it a great place to see a concert, it’s also a great place for a temporary art installation. This is Phoenix by Xu Bing, another first rate temporary art installation in a year just filled with them.
We’re keeping with a religious theme for a quick stop at the Cloisters, home to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s terrific medieval art collection. The building itself is part of that collection, with sections of buildings on view that were relocated from medieval Europe. And even the view across the river is part of the experience. When John D Rockefeller Jr donated money to create the Cloisters, he also was concerned that the view across the Hudson to the Palisades would be preserved. So, in order to preserve the ambiance of the Cloisters, he was behind the creation of Palisades Interstate Park. There is an almost unfathomable level of arrogance in this, to say that development in another state should be curtailed to appease a single museum’s view. I’m all for preserving land and smart development but still I have a real hard time with this.
The third phase of the High Line isn’t open yet, but you can now go and walk it anyway if you sign a waiver and wear construction boots. The section is open for another temporary art installation (which was fine), but the real attraction is the High Line itself.
We’re back at the same place ten months later where now Phase 3 of the High Line is open to the public. This section feels a lot less designed than the overdesigned (and beloved) first two phases, and that’s because it is. The overall plans for the western yard at Hudson Yards are still in flux, and a future far more polished (and far less raw) design for this section is eventually in store. Currently Phase 3 kind of feels a little bit like a pop up High Line and more of a simple connector than anything else.
After Toronto, Tampa, Storm King, Blairden, the BIG Maze, Boston, Acadia, a sugar sphinx, a cemetery, multiple boat trips, a porn free Jeff Koons exhibit and Phase 3 of the High Line, we’re finishing things off in Lower Manhattan at the Futon Street Transit Center, designed by Grimshaw. This is a really fun building, with a large, light filled section above ground that is directly adjacent to the 4/5 uptown tracks. After that it gets a little tricky. You can transfer fare free all the way to the 2/3 trains, but in order to do so you have to walk through the A/C platforms, which is not fun. I know that a lot of the problem with New York City Subway Systems is that the original lines were designed by three separate companies with no interest in transferring to each other, and untangling them to one clean station sometimes works and sometimes is impossible.
It’s honestly so nice to see more and more of the big Lower Manhattan projects finish up and open. It’s been 13 years since the attack, and this year saw Fulton Street and the 9/11 Memorial open, with the Santiago Calatrava PATH Station scheduled to open up next year or possibly the year after that. I really can’t wait for that one.
