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Washington, DC
It’s crazy the things we let go of
Time is not a constant, at least when it comes to slideshows. This is the 2022 Weekend Trips slideshows, an annual compendium of a few interesting pictures and stories that aren’t quite enough to merit their own full slideshow. And since it’s really quite hard to write an annual compendium as it happens, I’m actually writing (most) of this in 2023, looking back to 2022 and writing about a Smithsonian Institute exhibition called “Futures.” It seems a bit confusing when you start to think about it.
Futures took place at the Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building, and I was just as excited (perhaps even more excited) to see the building than the exhibit. The Arts and Industries Building feels like it has been closed forever, and it has been close to 20 years since visitors were allowed in. I don’t remember the last time I had been inside, or even if I had ever even been inside at all. The building did not disappoint, although it’s clear that the building needs some more renovations before it can truly live back up to its potential.
As for the exhibit, it was impressive with a great big flying taxi and a hyperloop vehicle, but (as I’m sure you can imagine), any exhibit that calls itself Futures is never going to be as comprehensive as its title suggests.
I have a few favorite museums in Washington, DC. First off is the National Building Museum, especially in the past when their insane summer installations were a lot more fun. I also love the East Wing of the National Gallery for its architecture, the Hirshhorn for its collection and the Renwick for its temporary exhibitions. Temporary exhibitions just like this one. This is 1.8 Renwick by Janet Echelman, located in that big room at the top of the stairs, floating menacingly (maybe “menacingly” isn’t quite the right word), and cycling through color after color after color.
We’re still in DC and we’re still at an art museum, although this time it’s the Hirshhorn, where we’re here to see Laurie Anderson: The Weather, a real funhouse of art and video. This giant scary bird looking like its about to eat tourists may not particularly sound all that fun, but it’s not necessarily representative of the entire exhibit. Sometimes I just choose the pictures I like and then let the other pieces fall wherever they land.
Sure, all those giant scary birds, menacingly floating artwork and great big flying taxis in DC were fun, but its time to go back home to New Jersey and stay local. For a lot of really good reasons, my weekend travels became limited in late 2022, especially during the last half of the year. That meant that I was happy to get out to see places like Lambert Castle, in the Garrett Mountain Reservation in Paterson. I was on a tour of the recently renovated building before it was reopened to the public.
It’s already October, which means that it’s time for Archtober, which kind of sounds like October and probably makes more sense than Archtember. I was able to book (or, more accurately, attend) two Archtober tours in 2022. The first was a tour of the Battery Maritime Building, which was renovated with a rooftop addition added. The upper floors became the Casa Cipriani, an expensive hotel where rooms start at $800 a night, and suites go up to ten times that rate. The building was beautiful and the views of the harbor were great, but I think if I just paid $800 a night for a hotel room, I’d be damn pissed that the helicopters over at the next pier (you know, the ones you always see in “Succession”) were so damn loud that it would be nearly impossible to get any rest, even after spending all of that money.
We’re finishing up the 2022 Weekend Trips early with the other Archtober tour. The Brooklyn Tower is the tallest building in Brooklyn and the first supertall building in New York outside of Manhattan. Supertall does not sound like an important word, but according to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (a real, totally not made up organization), a tall building is 983 feet or less, a supertall building is between 984 feet and 1,967 feet high, and a megatall building is 1,968 feet or higher. The Brooklyn Tower comes in at 1,073 feet high, meaning that even though it’s the 10th tallest building in New York City and it doesn’t quite make the list of 100 tallest buildings in the world, it’s still the undefeated king of Brooklyn, a good 300 feet taller than the second place tower.
If you’re looking at the first two pictures and wondering what they have to do with the other two pictures and a massive 1,073 tower, you would not be completely wrong. The Brooklyn Tower (designed by SHoP Architects) has an entry and lobby in the adjacent, historic Dime Savings Bank building, and part of the project involved saving and restoring its banking hall. Meanwhile the tower was designed to be sympathetic and reminiscent of the bank, but its size, shape and dark color instead looks a lot like that evil tower from The Lord of the Rings movies, you know the one with the great big eyeball on top.
