Plaza - Outside Views and Interiors too

Welcome inside The Plaza Hotel on 5th Avenue and 59th Street, where wild dreams have come true (your wildest of dreams, however, may not - unless you're rich and classy)! Where Sarah Jessica Parker saw Big with his soon-to-be Bride, where Eloise bugged butlers, where McCauley Culkin outsmarted goofy-looking criminals, where Cary Grant starred in the first ever on set movie back in the late 1950's in North By Northwest, where Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway got married in the biggest chick flick ever...

...where my co-workers and I conversed and sipped champagne on Tuesday night. I wrote about our experience attending a magazine launch party inside one of The Plaza's private residences where I switched back and forth from being party-goer/wishful-socialite (yeah, right) to candid photographer, capturing outside views and interiors too.

A party at the Plaza.... is... well, there's just nothing like it! Here's to hoping we get invited to another one!

A peek inside the elevator on the south side of the lobby



A view of the ceiling inside The Palm Court

View from the 6th floor residence where the party was held

View of Bergdorf's and 5th Avenue, looking south

"Orange Cafe" as I call it!

There is an awesome, orange filled cafe on 58th Street and 3rd Avenue. It is the ING Direct cafe—where you can save your money! Well, coffee, water, muffins, etc. used to be just $1, but I went in just a few days ago and they were all up to $2. However, the quality is good and the atmosphere is the best! Orange is my favorite color and Promenade Magazine (an NYC Mag) has an article in its Spring Issue telling about the fashionable color, describing it as "the happiest color."

I posted this first picture, taken from a seat on the 2nd floor, on TwitPic and it's gotten the most views of any of the other NYC photos I've got. The orange appeal is popular!

Cool building on 5th Avenue

I don't spend much time on Madison Avenue, but thanks to my unfortunate root canal, I've been visiting an office on 46th and Madison to have a retreatment done. The whole retreatment process has been very painful, stressful and expensive. But this is a photo blog so I'll explain more about the photo than the dental misadventures of yours truly.

I took this photo on 5th Avenue from the corner of 46th Street on a rainy Wednesday—one of those rainy days where you have an umbrella that's about to break and you regret that last minute decision to not wear your rain boots or galoshes. 

It was a clear, sun-filled, poetic day, as you can see...

Lights

Here I have some street pictures, made colorful and full of light by the cars and the rain. I took these probably half a year ago or more (I'm on vacation right now so had to dig this up, lol) when I was walking around on a rainy Saturday night by myself in the Flat Iron District (around 23rd Street and 5th Avenue). Yeah, New York can make you do crazy, creepy things (like walk around by yourself in the rain. Well, actually, I was out shopping on 5th Avenue and couldn't find any cute clothes so I resorted to taking lots of pictures and videos!)





My Youtube video of the cars to Robert Miles' "Children."

Gustave Caillebotte at the Brooklyn Museum

I visited the Brooklyn Museum and zipped up to the 4th floor galleries to see Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party, a permanent installation at the museum in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center's Herstory Gallery. This triangular dinner table is a FAMOUS piece of feminist art. Anyway, that's another post I believe.

Then I went on up to the 5th floor to see what I came to the museum to see, Gustave Caillebotte: Impressionist Paintings From Paris to the Sea. Yes! I'm a huge Impressionism lover.

It was at this exhibit that I realized: I don't go to museums to see pictures, I go to museums to take pictures of people looking at pictures. It's always great to see the young ones educating themselves, or the elderly taking camera phone pics.

Black and White

This exhibit, on display at the Brooklyn Museum through July 5th, is a site specific work made of black masking tape that wraps around and covers the walls of the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Gallery on the 5th floor. The three mile long mural-like display took approximately 280 hours to put up on the walls and visitors could actually see the work in progress, all leading up to the finished installment on March 27th.

Within the gallery there are flowing black lines on the walls all around you. Like zebra paint. And from what I observed, both children and adults loved it!

Sun K. Kwak's Enfolding 280 Hours

Brooklyn Museum

On Saturday March 28th I went to the Brooklyn Museum in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. I'd never been before but I walked past it last year in May when I went to the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens to see the last day of the Cherry Blossom Walk's bloom. The two venues are right across the street from each other.

I was drawn to this museum because I wanted to see Gustave Caillebotte's paintings in an exhibit that had just opened the day before on March 27th. The New York Times covered it and suggested viewing it, but I would have seen it no matter what. Caillebotte was a French Impressionist, and Impressionism is my favorite art movement of all.

It took 5 subway transfers to get me there, but it was worth it to not only see paintings by Caillebotte, but works by Georgia O'Keeffe, Diego Rivera, Judy Chicago, Auguste Rodin, Kara Walker and Kehinde Wiley—all artists I studied throughout high school and college.

More to come on this wonderful place of art and creativity!

View from across the street on Eastern Parkway



the lawn out front

1st floor lobby, directing "Everybody" towards the exhibit halls

1st floor lobby looking out onto Eastern Parkway, with sculptures
by various artists including Auguste Rodin!

Still, I digress

Many times throughout the dark night in Williamsburg Brooklyn, I fell behind the group, taking pictures of fences and what not. Not that I like fences, but they can be fun to photograph. They are like an endless subject, though they end somewhere up the street–but no photo has to show that. They don't always have to look restrictive or imprisoning. Rather, they can appear artistic and curious. Like, What is back there? Why is there a purple locker on this one?

It can never be unlocked... ha ha

I digress...

There's so much to see and do in Williamsburg Brooklyn, in addition to the local art galleries and unique cafes, stores and shops, etc. It's important to take in your surroundings and appreciate the environment. There are so many artistic people and so many places along the trendy streets of Bedford, Whythe, Berry, North 9th, and so on. You'll want to go back again and again, just like I do!

From inside The Boiler gallery, my reflection viewing 'The Distance Between What We Have and What We Want (Arctic Ice Project)' by Tavares Strachen



Somewhere north of Whythe Street

I don't stop

One weekend back in the beginning of March, I went to the Armory Show on Pier 94 and half a dozen galleries in Williamsburg Brooklyn. It was exhausting and painful (feet-wise) but I couldn't stop or quit because this is New York and this is part of what I came here for! To see what the New York art galleries and museums have to offer, to spend hours traveling to the edge of Manhattan and out to Brooklyn and back if I have to.

So I'd only been to the trendy Williamsburg neighborhood once before, only to get lost and scared as day fell, but this time I was with a group of photographers. We visited Pierogi, The Boiler, The Black and White Project Space and Jack The Pelican.

Here are some memorable images from the night:

Alina and Jeff Bliumis, 'Casual Conversations in Brooklyn'

Jonathan Schipper's '215 Points of View', 2005-09, steel frame,

215 monitors and surveillance cameras, rubber, cables.

At The Boiler, part of Pierogi.

Balloon spotting in NYC

I love balloon sightings in NYC! This one in particular caused me to miss a meeting with my Super to fix a water problem that I was having in my apartment. I spent so much time admiring and taking pictures of the same darn thing (these balloons) that by the time I got home, he had left the building and wouldn't take my calls. Well I ended up fixing the problem all by myself that night AND I got to document this awesome balloon scene on Lexington Avenue in the 60's. Some people like long walks on the beach, some people turtles, and I?- I like balloons -- only to look at though, not to hear pop loudly.

more on The Armory: Linear art

The Armory seemed to have everything new and nothing old. I've never seen anything like its! Lots of lines and colors and materials.

Basically, The Armory show is made up of hundreds of local and international galleries—from NYC to California to London—and they all have their own cubicle-like space where they exhibit their artists' works. Back in the day when The Impressionists, Fauvists and Cubists (including Marcel Duchamp, one of my favorites) exhibited, people were shocked by the wacky art (refer to previous post)! Nowadays, people aren't shocked by anything...

The Armory art Show

This weekend I discovered that there is a show called The Armory Show. It is an annual international exhibition of modern art, first held on February 17, 1913 in NYC. The art displayed gave many Americans their first taste of modern art and set the stage for such contemporary creativity.

I had never heard of this show before, so I was a little stumped when I got to the outer edge of Manhattan on 55th Street and 12th Avenue, by the Hudson River, for the show being held in Pier 94 and Pier 92. I was out to meet with some fellow photographers who had planned the outing, and it wasn't until a random guy sitting next to me on a bench turned to me and asked, "So what do you think?" I didn't have much to say... so he gave me a little background about the show. And then I went home and googled it.

The Museum of Natural History - so much fun!

The truth is, this museum is huge, and there is a lot in it. I can't share every photo of every wallaby, crustacean, roach, duck billed something-or-other, elephant, whale, skeleton, pomeranean (kidding), and what not, but below are some of my favorites. 

I took pictures of most of the exhibits, but those are so flat and strangely back-lit, and while the animal exhibits did impress me, the museum's overall environment and feel inspired me even more. The interior and exterior may be simple and traditional, but that translates to familiar and comfortable—and that is what we all need right now... when we're cold and alone in the winter months of this giant city. 

There's so much to take in... so many people, so many places, all one day and one night at a time.

they're looking at me! (from the african animals exhibit, 3rd floor)



1 green balloon inside the ground floor lobby

Theodore Roosevelt

museum's exterior on Central Park West, close to 81st street

Now I really want to see that movie, Night at the Museum!

The Museum of Natural History - ice skating

I hadn't been inside the Museum of Natural History since I was a pre-teen. My 8th grade class visited NYC and D.C. during a school field trip but I don't remember anything about it. Well now I'm a grown up and ready to take on every museum in the city and blog and post photos about it; remembering each visit and every view forever.

My main attraction to this museum was the Polar Rink - an outdoor skating rink next to the planeterium and along 81st Street. My initial understanding, based on photographs and random details, was that it was an indoor skating rink. Well I was surprised when I got there on the cold day that was Sunday March 1st and it turned out to be outside!

I'd had a busy weekend and was a little drunk still from Sunday brunch, but I was on a mission to see this so-called ice rink (it's not real ice, it's a synthetic, plastic-like material), on its very last day, which was this day (March 1st)!

what a cute bear, er, polar bear