October 28, 2022
On a cool sunny day, we headed up toward The Whitney Museum in the Meatpacking District. Along the way we passed through Greenwich Village, where Jake stopped at Leon’s for a bagel and lox, the quality of which confirmed what New Yorkers always claim, that nowhere else in the world do the bagels compare with those in New York. Apparently, it has something to do with the water here.
Last time we were in NYC it was pre-Covid. Since that time practically all of the restaurants have expanded out into the streets. Many have built covered spaces that often are quite elaborate. We liked this one with its Autumn theme.
As its name suggests, the Meat Packing District was once the home of over 250 slaughterhouses and packing plants. In the 1960s the area began to decline and by the 1980s it had become a center for drug dealing and prostitution. However, in the 1990s the area went through a transformation, attracting high end boutiques, catering to young professionals and hipsters.
It is also home to one of NYC’s newest and best museums. Designed by Renzo Piano and completed in 2015, The Whitney contains a huge collection of modern American art. While we were there, the main attraction was a large exhibit of Edward Hopper’s New York paintings. Many of his paintings are rather voyeuristic, looking through windows at people going about their lives. Staying in New York, we could see where Hopper got the inspiration for his work. Just that morning we looked out from our hotel room and right across the street into an office where a woman and man were working. It was very reminiscent of Hopper’s painting Office at Night, painted in 1940.
Here are some more paintings from the exhibition.
And here is a self-portrait of the artist.
The museum also has some great views over the surrounding neighborhood, The High Line, and the Hudson River.
The Museum sits right across the river from Little Island. Designed by Heatherwick Studio, it opened only last year. The artificial island covers 2.4 acres and is supported by 132 pot shaped structures that look like tulips, standing on concrete pilings of various heights. It has various lawns, gardens and paths as well as an amphitheater. It really is very impressive.
From Little Island we decided to go for a stroll along the High Line, a 1.45 mile long elevated walkway that was once an abandoned elevated railway but now has been extensively planted with gardens and trees. Along the way we passed some interesting but not very private buildings.
We eventually ended up at Hudson Yards, home of a high end Mall and the Shed, a cultural center opened in 2019 that presents a wide range of activities in performing arts, visual arts, and pop culture.
It is also home to the Vessel, an elaborate honeycomb like structure that rises 16 stories and consists of 154 flights of stairs. Unfortunately, not long after it opened in 2019, it began to attract suicides, with four people jumping to their deaths during 2020 and 2021. It is now closed indefinitely.
Mal and Lauren 