Ultimate Utterance?

My idea of a catchy title is a bad pun-but how else to wrap up The Eagle's Eyrie and bring closure to my five months in Brooklyn Heights?  Since my last entry was my penultimate entry this must be the ultimate. I want to bring closure to this blog so I can do a very un-blog-like transition.  I plan to print out all the entries and put a paper version in a scrapbook with my paper mementoes. 

I feel like I should wax rhapsodic, or at least philosophical, about the tremendous time I had from January through May 2010.  Every morning I woke to a sunrise over Brooklyn pouring through my window.  Morning and evening I watched the orange Staten Island Ferry nose into the Battery and at night its lights shimmered over the harbor.  I could traipse to any one of several subway stations and be off to an adventure in Manhattan.  My feet were my favorite vehicle to the island when I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and took in sky, water and enthusiastic fellow tourists.

And the music!  As if the muses knew that I would be listing my musical experiences, I am now listening to Ravel's Afternoon of a Faun on NPR's Performance Today.  This performance was conducted by David Robertson and is the same performance by the New York Philharmonic that I heard on February 18.  Wow, how is that for coincidence!  It's also a reminder that now I'll be more likely to experience these concerts through public radio than by taking a subway ride.

Out of curiousity I tried to list the operas, concerts and plays that I attended in New York:

12 Operas-including 4 premieres and 2 new performances (not premiere performance but premiere season)
15 Concerts-43 different performance pieces
10 Plays
1 Ballet
1 Night Club Performance
Multiple visits to museums, lectures at the 92nd Street Y, and the parks

I flew away from the Eyrie several months ago, but I'll always remember the time spent there and be grateful that I started this blog and captured my experiences while they were fresh.


Goodbye to  Apartment 11B, 2 Pierrepont St., Brooklyn, New York!

Central to Nature and to My Heart

This will be my penultimate entry in the Eagle's Eyrie-Brooklyn edition.  I thought I'd have all my entries done in June, but the demands of my Ithaca garden required my timely attention.  So it is only appropriate that this entry reflect on what I learned about landscape planning during my last week in New York and how it inspired me to think of my garden as my modest effort to linger into whatever "eternity" will be granted to this plot of land in Ithaca, New York.

I wax rhapsodic on landscape architecture as a result of a lecture I attended at The Morgan Library that last week in May on Great Romantic Landscapes.  The lecture was in conjunction with an exhibition that showed the European landscapes that inspired one of my favorite poets, William Wordsworth.  I always thought that Wordsworth and the Romantics were writing about natural landscapes, so it surprised me to learn that many of their subjects were planned gardens-albeit elaborate gardens-in Europe.  I think I always assumed that Central Park was carved out of a natural area that already existed in New York.  Not so. Visionary architects and designers, like Frederic Law Olmstead and Calvert Vaux, were provided monumental palettes by equally visionary civic leaders who realized that they needed to set aside natural landscapes before the titans of commerce and real estate usurped the land for profit. The original 770 acres (now expanded to 843 acres) were cleared of the poor African American, Irish and German inhabitants and amid years of construction and politics the final "Greensward" plan was finally completed. (The appraised value of these acres is now $528,783,552,000).  One inspiration for a city park that included bridges and hills and lakes was the Greenwood Cemetary in Brooklyn which I wrote about my May 2 blog.

The story of the Central Park Conservancy is almost as compelling as the original construction of Central Park. For decades, Central Park fell into disrepair due to poor maintenance and the financial problems of New York City. The Conservancy is a non-profit founded in 1980 that worked to clean up and restore the Park to its original design. They now have a public/private partnership with the City of New York and the park's vibrant beauty bears witness to the work and vision of hundreds of native New Yorkers. They have maintained and restored over 50 fountains//monuments/sculptures. They ensure that children can enjoy the 21 playgrounds, and philosophers and lovers can spend time on the 9000 benches. Beth and her runners' club take advantage of the 10 miles of loop roads and the rest of us meander on the 58 miles of pedestrian paths. Each of the 24,000 trees is documented in a database and each is identified by GPS positioning. These trees attract 275 species of migratory birds and thousands of birders.  (At this point I think it is significant to note that the designer's name-Vaux-rhymes with hawks!) One of the best views of the park is from the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of  Art and my video provides a great panorama.

Central Park was revived by politicians as well as the conservancy-Robert Moses made the initial effort to clean up the Park in the 1970's.   I mention this in appreciation of Mayor Bloomberg's support of the wonderful Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy which seeks to reclaim the beautiful East River Waterfront for the next generation of New Yorkers.  We were there for the opening of the Pier One park and look forward to returning in several years to see the completion of this ambition project.

There are other landscaping jewels that I've been able to visit and learn about this year.  Some of them are from the 19th century, like Frederic Edwin Church's Persian masterpiece, Olana on the Hudson River. Others celebrate artists of the 21st century like Maya Lin's Storm King Wavefield.   Each demonstrates how we can express ourselves in nature and create a space for future generations to enjoy.

Penultimate-I love that word.  I used to think it meant "beyond ultimate" and something special.  However, the more mundane meaning is that this is the second to last chapter.  My next entry will summarize my New York adventure and close the book on this time of my life.

Staten Island Ferry-A Classic Ride

Every day from the kitchen window of my Eyrie I would see the Staten Island Ferry come and go, night and day, every thirty minutes.  I never tired of watching the salmon colored boats leave Whitehall Terminal.  I especially loved it at night, with all the lights on the several decks it reminded me of James Cameron's scenes from Titanic.   I held out taking the ride myself because I thought one of my buddies would like to come for the ride with me during a visit. 

I was waiting for the perfect day, but by the week of May 23 it was too late to wait.  I had to take the classic ride from Manhattan to Staten Island and view all the sights of the harbor that I had previously seen from my Eyrie window.  So on Thursday, May 27 I took the #4 train to Bowling Green and finally the "transfer to the Staten Island Ferry" as I had heard the conductor announce on so many other MTA rides.  I vaguely remember taking the ferry when I visited NYC as a 12 year old and one of my strongest memories is that it was "such a deal" at only 25 cents for a ride.  Well, reader, it is an even better deal now.  It's free!  So those of you in the city who haven't yet taken the ferry at least once are urged to do so.  What a great way to get fresh ocean air, see the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and Governor's Island, compare the boroughs of Brooklyn and Staten Island with Manhattan. 

On the ferry one can visualize the role of maritime geography in New York's past and present. The New York Public Library had a wonderful exhibit on Mapping New York's Shoreline that Greg and I saw a few weeks prior to this trip.  Where barges now line up to wait for their turn to head out to the Atlantic, the harbor had been filled with sloops, privateers, pirate ships, clippers, steamships and battleships all navigating the Narrows to get to the Atlantic Ocean.  New York developed because of the trade in tobacco, sugar, rum, agricultural produces and mercantile products.  The China trade in teas, silks, opium, porcelains resulted in great wealth for many New Yorkers, including our "neighbors" Mr. Pierrepont and Mr. Low, whose brownstones were part of the Brooklyn Heights boom.  New York City became the largest shipbuilding center in the world in the 19th century.  And we can't forget New Jersey, which now has the bulk of shipping in the area with its massive containerized terminals at Port Newark-Elizabeth.

So on this overcast day, as I snapped poor quality photos along with all the other tourists, I relished a view of New York that many commuters may take for granted. Next time I go to New York I won't wait so long to take the best free ride in the area. 

Note to my readers-as you've noticed I've not been adding many entries.  I have about 2-3 more entries in my head that need to get blogged but I'm no longer in the Eyrie having returned to pastoral Ithaca.

Transition to Translational

Friday evening, May 28, I took the train up to the UES (Upper East Side for us cognescenti) to take Beth out to dinner to celebrate her first NIH "K" Grant.  This grant awards money for her salary to Cornell Med so that she can continue her research.  It also ensures that she will continue for at least two more years at Cornell on an entry-level attending status.  She's worked very hard and hopes that this is the first of many grants that will help her move along the academic research track. 

She also had a beautiful haircut that afternoon so I paused to take a photo of the layered back of her hair.  She is standing against a background of the construction site for Cornell's new research building which will support the emerging field of translational research that Beth is involved in.  This research "translates" clinical problems with bench research aiming for faster medical breakthroughs (If I'm stating this correctly).  The caption for this photo is Beth's thought "Hmmm I wonder where  my new lab and corner office will be be when they move me into this building?"

An American Idiot confounds a Cockeyed Optimist

My sixty year old adrenaline is pumping as I try to do as much as possible during this last week in New York, but I realize now that my adrenaline is a trickle when compared to the hydrant-like adrenaline that flows from a young punk rocker.  Last night I went to see American Idiot, the new musical based on Green Day's album.  I like Green Day's music and thought I'd appreciate the music having been a sideline observor to punk and emo during the late 90's and early 2000's when I followed the progress of Saves the Day.  Indeed, I first heard Green Day when Saves the Day opened for them on a tour in 2002 (?).

I enjoyed the energy and intensity of An American Idiot. The cast was fantastic and tireless.  The staging was convulsive and percussive.  In fact, its a good thing Greg didn't join me as he would have acquired a migraine with the combination of sound blasting and strobe lights pulsating. A day later, in re-reading Charles Isherwood's review, I am better able to appreciate the negativity that drove the plot and to realize that my reaction by the end of the play, when I wanted to shout "oh grow up" was exactly what all the ruckus was about. 

One of the characters, Tunny, chooses to escape his suburban existence by enlisting; he  is sent to Iraq where he loses a leg.  Watching Tunny's world in a regimented, idealistic army facing true life-and-death decisions contrast with the angry, dirty, needle-pushing world of Johnny caused me to recall Sledge Hammer from the recent HBO series The Pacific.  This memory, in turn, brought me full circle to my first musical this season, South Pacific.  Even when I was a young woman, I never felt the connection to rock that molded most of my generation.  I was always an Oscar Hammerstein idealist, a cock-eyed optimist, and this has served me well.  I can enjoy the pulsating beat of rock, but I don't think I've ever  connected to its "anomie and apathy" and anger.   Luckily, most of these rebels do grow up.

M&M's

When I worked at the Johnson School we would get M&M's from the Mars recruiters.  I would squirrel away a few packages and treat myself by opening a  package and rationing out 1 or 2 of these colorful candies at a time.  (OK-you know me-the rationing would work for about 15 minutes and then I'd gobble the rest of the package.)  I thought about this habit as I prepared to write about the visits that Greg and I savored slowly last Saturday.

The first two M's were the Magna Carta at the Morgan Library.  We wanted to take advantage of this limited showing of the 1217 document that had landed in the Morgan Library as a byproduct of the flight cancellations created by the volcanic ash in Iceland.  There's not much to say about the document, except it is always a thrill to look at something firsthand that changed the world and think about the significance of these words written on a piece of vellum.  We also wanted to look at Old Man Morgan's sumptious library before they renovate it over the summer. 

Next we walked down Madison Avenue to Madison Square Park and saw some wonderful architecture: the 1893 Metropolitan Life Building with its fantastic clock tower, the 1928 New York Life Insurance Building with its golden pyramid roof and David Burnham's 1902 Flatiron Building. As we walked through Madison Square I realized (duh) that this was the site of the original Madison Square Garden. You can see some of these buildings nestled beneath the Empire State Building in my nighttime skyline photo above. Greg wanted to make sure that you appreciated his fright when he saw a "jumper" atop one of the buildings on 5th Avenue around 20th. I knew that the jumper was just one of 31 naked Men put atop buildings and in Madison Square Park by the artist Antony Gormley for the Event Horizon.

Finally we turned on 21st Street to head to the Gagosian Gallery for the magnificent Monet exhibit.  This show pulled together four rooms of late Monet Water Lilies, which were spectacular transitions to modern art and abstract impressionism.  Many of these paintings were never exhibited in Monet's life and seeing how the aging artist, beset by cataracts, adapted to his world was an inspiration.  Getting old allows one to develop new techniques and a new vision.  The New York Times, once again, has a wonderful review which includes a slideshow of some of the paintings.  The New Yorker said "Do not miss it!" and we are really pleased that we didn't.

An American Eagle's Eyrie: Fleet Week

I guess the aircraft carrier the USS Iwo Jima is hard to miss, but I would have missed this great shot if it weren't for two happy coincidences.  I bought a new telephoto lens on Tuesday and had it at the ready to practice shots during my final week in the eyrie.  And I just happened to see the news trailer from the local news during the Today Show which said that Wednesday was the beginning of Fleet Week.  I looked outside my window and noticed that a parade of 11 vessels had begun.  There was a fireboat spurting red, white and blue sprays greeting the boats off of Governor's Island.  There was a mini-flyover of two jets.  And then the magnificent, huge ship came up the harbor, passed by my Lady Liberty, and headed up the Hudson River to dock for the festivities.  I've posted a few more shots on Flickr if you want to share the view.

This is a good opportunity to try to describe an event that I failed to photograph (what?  How could Kim fail to document something??).  About a month ago I looked out my kitchen window and the biggest boat I had seen so far was going by and heading up the East River towards the Brooklyn Bridge.  It had  Saudi Arabian registry and could have been a tanker.  It was about the size of the Iwo Jima.  I thought, "that's odd".  Ten minutes later I looked out and the tanker had two tugboats and was turning around back towards Ellis Island.  Was this a planned route?  Had the captain made a mistake and started up the wrong river?  Well we'll never know and I can only bore you with my anecdote and not my photos because I was too lazy to get the camera out of the case that day. 

I'll close with the beautiful fireworks from last night.  I was testing my camera on the Promenade when this display started. It was from Ellis Island.  I didn't know it was planned.  I don't even know if it was affiliated with Fleet Week; I tried to check it out on the web but don't find any reference to it.  I was talking to Greg at the time and he told me it was more important to talk to him than to take pictures, but I managed to get the tripod up and the camera set to get about five nice shots.  Did he suspect that I was doing this?  I bet he's glad I went ahead and seized the moment.