Park Slope, Brooklyn

Fellow Bloggers and avid NYC photographers, I have learned something: There are far more beautiful brownstones in Brooklyn than there are in Manhattan!

I came across the pointiest, curviest, brownest and beige-iest brownstones in a neighborhood called Park Slope last Sunday and I swear, it makes you want to uproot yourself from wherever you live and move on down to the Slope!

It was a colorful, clear Spring day but with the wind and weather, it felt like a brisk winter day (whatever brisk means, I dunno...).

I happened to go on a mini-road trip through Brooklyn with a friend who needed to stop by a restaurant in Bayrdidge where she left her credit card the night before so we stopped first in Park Slope for a little window shopping and sight-seeing. We walked along 7th Avenue (the main stretch—that and 5th Avenue), from 14th Street down to Garfield Place and over to Grand Army Plaza.

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!