A Free, Artsy Day in New York City
Over Christmas break, my fiancé, Ryan, and I had the amazing opportunity to travel to Rome, Italy (check out those adventures here if you haven’t yet). The cheapest flights to Rome were from NYC, and when the opportunity presents itself to have a day in NYC, you don’t turn it down. Both of us have already done most of the really big touristy attractions in New York and we’re both poor graduate students, so we decided on an itinerary that allowed us a free day in the city (aside from food, of course).
To start the day, we went to the Dominique Ansel Bakery for a signature cronut. The bakery serves one-of-a-kind flavors that rotate every month, and January’s flavor was cherry almond biscotti (filled with cherry jam and almond biscotti ganache). There is no photographic evidence of this cronut ever having existed because I lost all rational thought, I was so consumed by its flaky perfection (translation: it was really good).
Still recovering from illnesses we both picked up in Rome, Ryan and I let ourselves have a moment of rest before grabbing lunch in Chelsea Market and heading for the High Line.
The High Line is a former New York Central Railroad spur that was converted into a park—a project that has inspired other cities to redevelop obsolete infrastructure as public space. The elevated walking path originates in the Lower West Side of Manhattan, giving you stunning views of the city and the Hudson River. It is home to a wide variety of vegetation, as well as art installments. Many of the current installments had a political motivation; it was artwork as activism, taking on subjects such as Mexican immigration, Native American rights, and the conflict of manmade and natural.
After this blustery walk, Ryan and I took a brief stroll through Central Park, where I attempted to recreate a photo I took six years ago on my high school senior trip. It’s crazy to see not only how the skyline has changed, but also how I have!
On Fridays, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is free from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m, so that was the next destination on our list. I’m not the biggest fan of modern art (sorry to all the guys in mock turtlenecks we saw, but I don’t really understand the point of wavy lines on graph paper), but this museum houses several Van Gogh paintings that I’ve never seen in person (and Van Gogh is my favorite artist of all time). Thus, we found ourselves quite literally wading through a sea of people to visit the MoMA for free that Friday night.
I don’t know if it’s just that I was disillusioned by all the crowds on this trip, or if there were genuinely that many more people at the MoMA that night than other museums I’ve been to (and I’ve braved the crowds to see the Mona Lisa), but it felt suffocating trying to get to Starry Night. Still, I’m always in awe of the power of Van Gogh’s work, and Starry Night was no exception.
While looking at Starry Night, I was reminded of one of my favorite episodes of Doctor Who, where Van Gogh describes the world through his eyes: “We’re so lucky we’re still alive to see this beautiful world. Look at the sky. It’s not dark and black and without character. The black is in fact deep blue. And over there! Lights are blue. And blue in through the blueness, and the blackness, the winds swirling through the air… and then shining. Burning, bursting through! The stars, can you see how they roll their light? Everywhere we look, complex magic of nature blazes before our eyes.”
One of the most wonderful things about art is how it can cause you to view the tapestry of life around us with renewed awe or an enriching perspective, and I was certainly reminded of this during our day in New York City.
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