Day 2: Rainy Rendezvous

Overview of today’s agenda: The Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met), The Museum of the City of New York, walking tour of downtown and a night out in the Village

Eager to make the most out of my 7 days here in NYC I hit the museum that opens the earliest first – the Met at 9:30. I was so glad I got there early because I was nice to enjoy the art without the crowds, because by lunch time it was packed. It is a huge museum, it would take days to see the whole thing properly, so I had to pick and choose what parts I went to. Unfortunately there section on American artists was closed, so I opted for the19th European section instead. Saw some notable paintings like Death of Socrates, by Jacques Louis David, The Harvesters by Bruegel and Aristotle with a Bust of Homer  by Rembrandt.  While some of these painting were profound in their influence – as a found out  with the audio guide (which I would highly recommend – art lover or not), I enjoyed the modern art sections much more. Here I got a good taste of American modern art like Jackson Pollack, Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. There was also the European cubists, surrealists and impressionists that I love. I concluded with the Met’s extensive Egyptian collection – it is amazing to see how much western countries excavated in the early 20th century. The Met claims to have over 25,000 artifacts!

One great bonus of the Met is that your ticket is good all day (including the audio tour and coat check) so you can leave for lunch etc. I had lunch on the walk up 5th Ave to the Museum of the City of New York. Toronto’s ‘street meat’ is quite limited – hotdogs or Chinese. So here in New York I had an urge to branch out an try a knish. I was not disappointed – the potato and meat filled Jewish dish was tasty.

The Museum of the City of New York was a good way to escape tourists – it was quite empty mid afternoon. It had some great exhibits on the founding of New Amsterdam, trade in NYC in the 19th century, a fashion exhibit on the clothes designed by New York icon Valentina and to cap it off a 25 minute video show on the history of the city from New Amsterdam to present. It was informative 3 hour visit. 

At 4:00 (in the middle of a rain deluge) I met my greeter as part of the Big Apple Greeter program. It’s a volunteer program where locals meet with tourists and introduce them to a neighbourhood of the city. My greeter and I walked from Union Square (aka the protest square) crosstown to the meat packing district (by day an industrial area, but by night the hottest clubbing area). Next was the highlights of Greenwich Village including where Carrie from Sex and the City supposedly lived on Perry St., also some good bars and jazz places. We concluded with a walk through Noho and Soho to Canal St (aka bargain central!) After that I headed back to the hostel for dinner.

Getting from my hostel in Harlem to downtown can take 30 minutes and it seems the subway is always busy no matter what time of day – rush hour is just uber crowded! So when I headed back down to the Village for evening adventures I had spent probably 2 hours on the subway already today! Some gals from the hostel and I checked out a mediocre comedy show and then people watched at a pizza place.My greeter was right when he said that neighbourhoods are completely different at night – some of the streets of the village were all neon – something you would have not expected being in the sleepy campus area in the afternoon. All in all the first full day was an action-packed success!