Travels in the 2nd half

  Most cities and towns have museums that are dedicated to their history. New York, being a special place, has several. The five boroughs all have historical societies, and then there is my subject this week, The Museum of the City of New York. From Activist New York   The Museum of the City of New York (MCNY) was founded in 1923 to preserve and exhibit the history of life in the city. Its vision has always been one that was open to, and openly invited in, all members of the New York community. At first it was housed in Gracie Mansion, the official home of the mayor of New York. In 1926, the city donated land on Fifth Ave, and the Museum built its permanent home on Fifth Ave and 103rd Street. This new home opened in 1932. In 2006, after a planned move downtown, to the Tweed Courthouse, was nixed by then Mayor Bloomberg, the museum took on a two year renovation, and today it offers wonderful and world class exhibition galleries. Delegates to the First American Writers Conferen...

  New York City is full of museums, but the has always been a lack of representation of artists who are not male, and of European descent. As the Puerto Rican population in New York City grew during the 1950’s and 1960’s a movement developed to remedy that situation. The movement saw fruition in 1969, when El Museo del Barrio opened. Engine Company 53 - home of El Museo -Cover Photo from "A Tribute to EC 53" Rafael Montañez Ortiz began to collect and create materials that highlighted Puerto Rican artists for schools in the neighborhood known as El Barrio, which was home to many of the Puerto Ricans that had move to the city. Ortiz expanded this project as a community resource, first in a classroom, and moving about the neighborhood, until, in 1969, it found a home in an abandoned firehouse. It role was to be place that exhibited the work of Puerto Rican and Nuyorican artists who were ignored by other museums in New York. In 1977 El Museo moved into its current space, occupy...

  New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art has an amazing collection of work. The main museum, on Fifth Avenue, is a place to get lost in art from around the world, and from many time periods. However, if you want to explore medieval art from Europe, you have to travel up to Ft. Tryon Park, at the northern end of Manhattan, to the city’s own medieval monastery - The Cloisters. In Fort Tryon Park, The Met - Cloisters sits on a hilltop overlooking both the Hudson and Harlem Rivers. This castle is comprised of stones from several European buildings and chapels built over eight hundred years ago. The structures were originally purchased by George Gray Barnard , an American sculptor. While living in Europe prior to World War I, he began to deal in, and collect medieval art and religious items, with an eye toward creating a museum in New York City. His purchases included several chapels and Abbys that had been abandoned. In 1925, John D Rockefeller acquired Barnard’s collection for th...