Scott Hastings ’15 – New York is a wild place even for someone like me, who grew up on the East Coast near the fifth largest city in the country. Today we visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art, home to some of the world’s finest and most significant works of art in history. Very few places allow you to see works by Van Gogh, Monet, and Pollock together in addition to works by ancient Chinese and Japanese print makers and painters.
The museum had full scale reconstructions of zen gardens, Colonial American squares and Roman Temples. A couple of the other guys got their first taste of public transportation riding subways and busses in quick succession. When we were allowed on our own and had our fill of the Met we headed into to Queens to see a famous Graffiti display. We were disappointed to find that it had been demolished recently but decided all was not lost and headed further up the 7 line to the location of the 1964 World’s Fair. It’s amazing that the fixtures and displays developed for the World’s Fair are still as modern and fresh as they were in 1964.
Finally, we took the 7 to its terminus at Times Square and walked around marveling at the street performers and activists and all the people who come from around the world to experience the intersection that never goes dark.
Tuesday sees us visiting the polar opposite of the Met as we explore a small gallery owned by a Wabash alumnus called Minus Space. It will be interesting to compare and contrast the massive museum and the smaller contemporary gallery.
