Hot City

Free yoga class in Bryant Park on a hot and humid night – that's a lot of yogis. (click on photos to enlarge)

Although we had a cold spring, we are now suffering in New York, along with the rest of the east, from a serious heat wave. It's too hot to be outside, which is a drag. The summer so far in general has been very hot and humid, and the air has been heavy with discomfort. I've lived in New York a long time and I don't ever remember it being this humid, like a tropical climate. I wonder, with the changes in global warming, if this is how we will live now. I don't mind heat and I like summer but I long for dry, light, crisp air.

One night when the heat abated a bit TD and I walked over to Madison Square Park which used to be nothing special but has been transformed into a lovely city escape on Fifth Avenue at 23rd Street. Danny Meyer's Shack Shake is located there, and we got a glass of wine which is served in a sculptural plastic glass that is shaped for holding with a notch for your thumb. Disposable chic. We had a seat on a park bench, and, delightfully, a free jazz concert soon started with a wonderful singer named Rene Marie. Everyone around was entranced by her music. The classic Flatiron Building, built in 1902, rose above the trees in the park. There was peace in the city. It was one of those unexpected magical New York moments.

Stylish cylists are now tooting around town on 6,000 blue shiney Citibikes, the new bicycle sharing system in New York City. I like this guy's casual shorts worn with dressy lace-up leather shoes. As a bicycler, I am a fan of this new program. I say more bikes in the city and less cars.



A cool place always to take refuge is the New York Public Library main branch at 5th Avenue and 42nd Street, the Beaux-Arts Edwardian pile which was completed in 1911.

The branch is now slated for a controversial renovation, and a group has just filed a lawsuit to halt the renovation. I really hope this library is not ruined.

Speaking of global warming, this delivery was a first. This pamphlet recently arrived in the mail from the Office of Emergency Management in response not doubt to last year's Hurricane Sandy.

Yikes.

A Weekend in Southampton

(click on photos to enlarge)
TD and I went this past weekend to Southampton to visit my brother Thom, his wife Karen, and their son Aaron. We have been invited to their home before and it is always a treat to go there. Especially this past weekend it provided a relaxing respite as TD's beloved mother Edna Dawson passed away two weeks ago in southern New Jersey. They were good buddies and best friends. She was a strong and independent 91-year-old who went to the gym regularly almost until the end, and she will be greatly missed. The funeral was held last Wednesday. You might remember that my mother passed away on Labor Day. In May, my father's last sibling, my aunt Eleanor Noonan passed away in Utica, New York. My aunt Molly recently passed away in Rochester. It's been a lot in a year and a half...

So this excursion on Friday was good timing. Southampton is a beautiful town – all green trees and grey shingle houses and imported cars. On Saturday afternoon, Aaron said to me Let's go for a car ride. He drove the convertible. Stick shift. As we traveled over the back roads, we passed big farms and produce stands. We were heading north, up towards Sag Harbor. Green hills untouched by developers rolled away in the distance. I really didn't know that the Hamptons were so rural. We got up around Sag Harbor and I could view glimpses of blue water through the green trees. We turned around and headed back. As we sped over the country roads it felt like we were flying through heaven.

My clothes for the weekend: blue.

A walk along Main Street in Southampton with its crisp, clean facades.

A riot of Lacroix color exploded out of a flower planter on Main Street.

Real estate + pansies

After dinner at the house TD took a relaxing swim in the pool.

The next day TD and Aaron played kadima on the beach.

TD went swimming in the ocean which is kind of still cold in June but refreshing, and I went in too.

A proper straw hat for a day in the sun.

There was not a cloud in the sky - just fine wisps feathering peacefully past.

The beach is always a healing and restorative place to be.

Big big thanks to our hosts.

Brian and Dan Got Married!

Dan Hantman and Brian Healy at their wedding reception (click on photos to enlarge)
I have known Brian Healy since he was five years old, when TD introduced me to friends and neighbors on Jane Street who have since became like family to me. The Healys are a busy and inspiring group – father Don climbed Mount Everest, cousin Nicole got married in New Hamsphire,  and in September sister Mary wed her partner Karima. Recently Brian happily married his partner Dan here in New York City. You can read their wedding announcement in The New York Times here. And, yes, supportive and accepting Don and Joyce Healy win the Parents of the Year Award.

The marriage ceremony was held at our church, Judson Memorial Church, on Washington Square South, and officiated by our senior minister The Reverend Dr. Donna Schaper. During the service, Gershwin's "For You, For Me, For Evermore," was beautifully sung by opera singer Jonathan Tuzo – you may remember when we went to Jonathan's Glimmerglass Opera House recital in Cooperstown. After the ceremony, guests progressed on to the reception held at The National Arts Club on Gramercy Park.

The National Arts Club promotes fine arts and serves as a private club for artists, collectors, and supporters; one of its earliest members was Henry Frick. The club is housed in a mansion which was built in 1845. Inside, visitors today find one of New York City's great interior spaces where dark wood walls, antiques, and artwork seem untouched from the nineteenth century. It offers a gorgeous trip back in time.
Here is a view of the bar -

Over the bar is installed a stunning domed ceiling of stained glass which was designed by John La Farge who also created the colorful stained glass windows at Judson Church between 1892 and 1910.

We wended our way through the big crowd

as a piano player entertained. 



We caught up with some friends - here we are with Brian along with Tom Meehan and his wife Carolyn Capstick. Tom is one of Broadway's most successful (and funniest) writers, having won Tonys for Annie, The Producers and Hairspray.

Lending some glamour: Nicole Parker King and Carrie Ashley Hill who sings and plays guitar in the Brooklyn indie rock band Desert Stars.

The late afternoon light was gently fading as dusk was falling which is my favorite time of day to be in an old-world room. During the violet hour, time seems to stop and everything becomes elegant and relaxed.

There was wonderful furniture

and art everywhere.

Soon it was time to move on to dinner.
And then dancing! Brian and Dan had a dance with their mothers

and later Brian and his sister Mary let loose.

TD and I enjoyed taking a spin on the dance floor ourselves.
There was a photo booth set up where guests could have their pictures snapped.
TD and I scrunching down to fit into the frame –

and me with Brian's mother Joyce.

Jolly good time. The day was a great and joyful celebration, and we were so happy to be there.
At the reception we dropped off a gift card for the boys which TD illustrated.

Inside the card, we wished them the very best for all the good things that are coming in their life together.

Fashion, Art and Culture Meet

With jewelry designer extraordinaire and cultural philanthropist Ann Ziff. 
I was very happy recently to go with my nephew Aaron to Ann Ziff's jewelry store on Madison Avenue for a party celebrating a new book – Diller, Scofidio + Renfro: Lincoln Center Inside Out. You may remember Ann Ziff on the blog - she is a wonderful jewelry designer and was in the news when she donated $30 million to the Metropolitan Opera.

Ann's jewelry collection is called Tamsen Z, and her Tamsen Z store on Madison is a polished jewel box where Ann offers her beautiful, artistic designs which combine unusual colors and textures and gems. "I make every piece myself by hand," she told me. "It's my own little sweat shop." At the party, she was wearing glittery platform shoes, a hot pink silk blouse, and layers of her own golden necklaces inspired by faraway places. On her wrist twinkled a stack of thin jeweled bracelets. "If one is good, twenty one is better," she cracked.

As a major supporter of the Metropolitan Opera and Lincoln Center, Ann was celebrating the new book by the design firm Diller, Scofidio + Renfro, who rose to renown when they created the wonderful High Line park. Now they have breathed new life into Lincoln Center with a ten year renovation which has greatly improved the campus which many saw as an unsuccessful example of brutalist 60's architecture. Coincidentally, TD and I had just seen a very interesting documentary on PBS about how Diller, Scofidio + Renfro merge art and architecture.  "They have changed the mood of Lincoln Center," Ann Ziff said to me. "They have made it very inviting and turned it into something beautiful. It's just genius what they did. I don't know anyone else who could have done it."

In the back of the store, Elizabeth Diller, Ricardo Scofidio and Charles Renfro where greeting friends and signing their book about Lincoln Center. I had the chance to meet and talk with Elizabeth. "At Lincoln Center, we wanted to bring the vitality of the concert halls out into the public, and turn it inside out," she told me. They certainly successfully did that by designing a new plaza, refurbishing Alice Tully Hall,  transforming the West 65th Street block, and more (don't miss the new restaurant with the green grass lawn on top of it).

Elizabeth told me that one of the most sensitive and controversial aspects of the project was renovating the iconic fountain at the center of the plaza. But her firm did a beautiful job, installing new nozzles and lighting, and replacing the circular perimeter with a polished granite surface that seems to float in the air. I took this picture of the fountain when we went to the Metropolitan Opera in January.

On the way out of Tamsen Z, I looked up and noticed the store's light fixtures. They are miniature versions of the huge crystal chandeliers at the Metropolitan Opera house which famously ascend before a performance begins. I love a New York City party that rolls up style, art, and culture in one event.

A Trip to the Frick to See Drawings and Prints from the Clark

A view into the Garden Court of the Frick (click on photos for a larger view)
I recently visited the Frick Collection, the perennial New York City favorite on the upper east side, in order to see a current exhibition called The Impressionist Line from Degas to Toulouse-Lautrec: Drawings and Prints from the Clark. Readers of this blog probably know that the Frick Collection was created by Henry Clay Frick, the turn-of-the-century American industrialist, financier and art patron.

His home on Fifth Avenue was built in 1912-1914, and when he passed away in 1919 the house became a museum filled with his old master paintings and French furniture, which we enjoy today. The Frick offers an elegant, Edwardian trip back in time at the corner of 70th and 5th. I hadn't been in a while, so I took a spin through.

Eight canvases painted by Francois Boucher line the walls of this salon. The romantic canvases originally were installed in Mrs. Frick's boudoir upstairs.

Painted panels by Fragonard decorate the walls of the drawing room. The large, poetic panels picture the different stages of love.

In 2011, an outdoor walkway was enclosed with glass to create the new Portico Gallery. Currently, it houses an exhibition of important clocks and watches.

The West Gallery was where Mr. Frick displayed many of the paintings he collected. In his time, paintings were hung on top of each other, salon-style.

The peaceful Garden Court was originally an exterior courtyard. It was covered with glass when the house was converted into a museum. 

In the smaller gallery downstairs, a visitor now finds The Impressionist Line from Degas to Toulouse-Lautrec: Drawings and Prints from the Clark. The Sterling and Francine Clark Institute in Williamstown, Mass., has a great collection of nineteenth century French art, and 58 of its works have traveled to the Frick with this exhibit which was organized by curators Jay A. Clarke from the Clark and Colin B. Bailey and Susan Grace Galassi from the Frick. Emphasising spontaneity and expressiveness over a polished finish, these drawings and prints capture contemporary life in nineteenth century France. 
A busy Paris street by Pissarro -

Camille Pissarro (1830–1903)
Boulevard de Rochechouart, 1880
Pastel on beige wove paper
23 9/16 x 28 15/16 inches
© Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts, 1996.5

Bathers by Cezanne -

Paul Cézanne (1839–1906)
The Bathers: Large Plate, 1898
Lithograph printed in black, green, yellow-green, orange, gray, blue, and purple-blue on cream laid paper
19 x 24 13/16 inches
© Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts, 1962.26

An entertainer by Toulouse-Lautrec -

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864–1901)
The Seated Clowness (Miss Cha-U-Kao), from Elles, 1896
Lithograph printed in green-black, black-brown, yellow, red, and blue on cream wove paper
20 11/16 x 15 13/16 inches
© Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts, 1962.108

Boating by Morisot -

Berthe Morisot (1841–1895)
Before a Yacht, 1875
Watercolor over graphite on cream wove paper
8 1/8 x 10 9/16 inches
© Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts, 1955.1964

I am right now reading Rosamond Bernier's memoir Some of My Lives, where I learned that Berthe Morisot married Eduard Manet's brother Eugene Manet, and they had a daughter, Julie Manet. Did you know that? This Morisot watercolor also reminded me of the Morisot paintings now on view at the Impressionism and fashion exhibit currently mounted up the street at the Met. This drawings and prints show at the Frick, up until June 16th, dovetails nicely with the Impressionism and fashion show at the Met. Go!

Spring Comes Slowly to NYC

Take a seat in Union Square (click on photos to enlarge)
Spring is tiptoeing in late to New York City this year. Unusually cool weather lingers and has kept the joys of April at bay, but slowly the trees and flowers of the city are coming to life. Because it is late and we are anticipating it, spring in New York seems more beautiful than I remember it being in the past. Its absence makes the heart grow fonder.
Up on the High Line, white flowering shrubs crowd an urban walkway. 

At the Saturday morning Farmer's Market in Union Square, trays of plants are coming out for city gardeners.

A metal bucket of tulips was suspended in the air 

and there is a profusion of bouquets to select from.

At Abingdon Square in Greenwich Village, a magnolia tree framed a renowned Bing & Bing apartment building

and pale petals fell to the ground around bright red tulips.

At Bryant Park in midtown, the tall trees are budding

and the tulip beds are bursting 

but no sitting on the green lawn yet because it has just been re-seeded.

On Saturday I went to the Brooklyn Flea in Fort Greene which has recently moved back to its outdoor spot at the Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School. A visitor leaving the Flea rode his bicycle down Lafayette Avenue -

Sunday was a warm and clear day in Central Park. My favorite place to be is around the Jacqueline Onassis Reservoir where pink trees are now blooming in profusion. I believe these are Kwanzan cherry trees from Japan.

Families had picnics under the branches. Very Sunday in the Park with George.

The majestic towers of the San Remo apartment building on the west side rose above the soft green and pink colors of springtime Central Park.

I love that combination of urban architecture plus spring blooms – art plus nature, it is the city at its best.