I spent all, and I do mean all, day of the Fourth in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC's answer to the British Museum, which was just as chock full of flashbacks to high school as that establishment was. Oh hello, cover of various Latin and lit textbooks. Nice to see you again. Just like the other one, it's freakin' giant: I bet it takes up a whole block on the "Museum Mile" by Central Park (further explorations forthcoming).
It was different from the British Museum in that it was much louder in the galleries for some inexplicable reason, and navigating was like trying to find your way in the corn maze from hell. Random rooms and halls were blocked off with ropes and benches, ensuring I could never get where I wanted to go except by accident. Finally figured out the American wing I was aiming for (and the Madame X portrait, in particular) was entirely closed for renovation or some crap. The collection of American art closed on Independence Day -- what?! I'm surprised there weren't riots in the streets. It's reopening around the 22nd of this month, so I'll have to make a repeat visit.
Some highlights:
Hall of Greek statues.
Ridiculously tiny and intricate wood carving -- the height of the center bar was maybe an inch.
This is stained glass by Tiffany. Glass! It is colored glass! How-- ccchhhhh?!
How do you know you museum is huge and important?
It absorbs other buildings.
Okay, not really. They just thought the front of this bank
was a cool design exhibit and transported it to the museum.
How do you know your museum has too much money?
"Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" by Georges-Pierre Seurat
After that I had to come home to regroup and put my feet up on the couch til I felt less like death. I had read that the big Macy's firework show was on the Hudson River, so around 8 I took the subway as far west as it would go and then kept walking til I hit water. Luckily there were tons of people to follow, so I ended up on a pier (back in the shady Meatpacking District) out on the water to see the fireworks. They weren't spectacularly huge or better than what I've seen before, but they did have a lot more variety as far as different kinds and novelty fireworks that everyone got a kick out of. It was like a bowl of pyrotechnic Lucky Charms in the sky: "Look, it's a smiley face!" "A heart!" "Saturn!"
There were cops everywhere, and I didn't really know what to expect from this New York crowd. But everyone was really polite and genuinely excited. At one point during the fireworks, some guy yelled "Happy Fourth of July, everybody!" and everyone cheered him. Overall, it was a memorable experience that afforded ample opportunity for me to stop and reflect on how good my life is right now.
This morning I got up ungodly early because I had a ticket to go to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. You have to take a boat to get to both islands, and it's a two-fer deal with the EI Immigration Museum fee included in the price. I took the subway down to the Battery (mental directions courtesy of Leonard Bernstein) to pick up my ticket, catch the ferry, and generally act like a competent human being. That's not something I usually get to do.
You can see the statue from the tip of Manhattan (which is what the Battery area is), but only from the side and distantly. It was surreal, like seeing someone across the room you think you recognize, but aren't sure of because you don't think it's possible that you're both in the same place. When the ferry's out in the water approaching the island and leaving Manhattan behind, everyone crowds to the back of the boat to see New York disappear, just a bunch of tall buildings on a tiny piece of land.
I didn't get to go up in the statue, although they let you go up to the crown now. But the view from around it and the surrounding park were pretty good. I hopped onto a ranger-led tour of the island with a guide who got his degree at the James Brown/ fiery preacher school of enunciation, which was ten kinds of amusing.
I said-a, HA, who can tell me, why the, why the statue's-a green, HA?
Among the points he reiterated was that the first immigrants "came here to build the roads, so their children could design the cities." I wasn't really sure what he was on about, but it sounded good. Seeing the statue, especially from a boat, is kind of emotional when you stop to think about the millions of people who have been in that spot over the past 125 years (when Ellis Island opened) and what they were thinking when they saw it. For people who had given up literally everything to come to America, and who could never go back home even if they were rejected, and who had probably never seen anything taller than a two or three story building, I can't imagine what coming into the harbor and seeing the statue and Manhattan must have been like.
The Immigration Museum on Ellis Island was even better, because it gave life and voices to the kind of nebulous concepts of freedom and liberty that are floating around the statue. I had definitely always wanted to visit, thanks to a childhood full of historical fiction (does anybody remember Dear America? Those are still good, by the way). But it was way more emotional than I was anticipating. It wasn't personal, specifically (the B's were kickin' it in the woods of Polk County a century before EI even opened), but the museum really cuts to the heart of you and feel as if these people's story is your own, or that of someone you loved. They really downplay the perception (driven by Hollywood?) of EI as a dark, unforgiving place where families were torn apart by uncaring officials and focus on the hope of the people that came through of building a new life in a country free of the persecution and corruption they had fled.
Although even in the 19th century, dorm life was hell.
Ruthenian woman at Ellis Island, c. 1906. By Augustus F. Sherman
The ones with interesting dress or origins in countries that no longer exist were my favorites, but it was hard to look back into the eyes of a picture when you saw the note at the corner that said 'deported'. That is, for some reason they were denied entry to the U.S. and sent back to their native country. If, like many, they were fleeing persecution and had sold all their possessions to afford a steamship ticket, I have no idea what could've happened to them in the end.
There's a film they have that will make any decent-hearted person cry like a baby, introduced by a park ranger who eventually reveals that his own grandparents came through Ellis Island. It's not that the film is overwhelmingly sad, exactly, but that it really makes you understand what the ranger was talking about on Liberty Island. Immigrants were drawn by stories of America as a fairy tale land where the streets were paved with gold and anyone could find work and live like a king, but what they found was usually much different, especially in the cities. The work was hard, incessant, paid poorly, and necessitated living in terrible conditions in tenements that were breeding grounds for disease and crime. But, they did it, and many counted themselves lucky. The surprising lack of "America blows" protests and literature was probably only because most immigrants were not used to a country where one could openly criticize the situation. But why was America an upgrade? Because living poorly was still better than living under tyranny, I guess. But what else?
Because they accepted that although things were going to be bad for them, things would be better for their children. And maybe this was enough. If the parents had to work a crappy job six days a week and save every penny so their child could have more schooling then they ever had, that was how it had to be. With education, their child could get a better job, move to a better area, and hopefully live better. The American dream for immigrants was a dream deferred to subsequent generations, and I think most just had to learn to accept that.
I can't imagine that kind of sacrifice. If I came to a foreign country in hope of an improved life and found things to be so crappy, I'd be mad as hell. I might even give up and go home, if that were possible. I can't imagine sticking it out knowing that I'd never reap the benefits. To continue on living a miserable existence, to benefit those I loved more than myself and counted as more important than myself, even if they hadn't been born yet -- I just can't imagine it.
But I think they could, and maybe that's why they stuck around. Maybe accepting that progress is incremental and all you can do in your lifetime is lay the foundation and hope for the best is the key to it. Maybe I could stand to build the roads as an unskilled laborer if I knew my children would get the chance to design the cities as architects, if I just kept on doing what I had to do. Maybe, but I don't know.
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