Brooklyn Museum

Well dear readers, hopefully you haven't abandoned me yet, Last weekend was filled with a visit to Jersey and the plague like illness that I contracted while there. Rest assured I am slowly mending, which is why I'm happy to say I present you with another adventure!

I went to the Brooklyn Museum of Art!

Easily got to by taking the 2 or 3 lines south until you get to the Eastern Parkway stop and Voila!


The Brooklyn Museum is the second largest in the City and arguably one of the largest in the United States; it was opened just prior to the consolidation of the Boroughs into New York City.
It has a pretty eclectic collection and sorts things similar to the way the larger Metropolitan Museum in Manhattan divides it's art, albeit with a slightly smaller collection. To its credit though the Museum embraces a more personal, human approach to art and although it has within it's collection Cezannes, Picassos and Monets, it also has a rather nice chunk of religious/iconic work, African, Asian and Islamic, personal artifacts of various other cultures. Some of my favorites, include:


Albert Bierstadt's "A Storm over in The Rocky Mountains", located within the America Identities, A New Look, American Landscapes exhibit, which looks at the changing concepts and norms of American art.

Another interesting one was by Louis Rémy Mignot "Niagara". I enjoyed most the thoughts of one child who visited the museum:


Pretty articulate for a 7th grader, even if from a school devoted to a Museum! See what you think of it:


Apologies for the weird angle, there was an awkward chair seating area in front of the painting and I wasn't sure if it was a 'Sit and Enjoy the Art!' or a 'This is a display of art that happens to be chairs'. Either way I didn't want to be the one who accidentally traipsed across the 15th century Ming Dynasty, hand-woven carpet made of unicorn hair.

Now for those kids at heart LOOK AT THIS! I was so amazed by it, and although supposed to be about how the West has essentially lumped Native American cultures into one category and illustrated this feeling by the whole plastic mold bit. BUT if for a moment we ignore the smallpox blankets for a bit and be amazed at this for the very fact that it's a GIANT PLASTIC (native american) INDIAN!:


Thank you Yoram Wolberger for creating "Red Indian#4 (Spearman)" and while making a social, political and cultural statement also making a life size toy!

And lastly this is just fun to look at. I forgot to look at the name so I have no idea who this is by or the title, but it is AWESOME.

What's also unique about the Museum is they have a large group of actual rooms (and an entire house!) of hisorical homes both from Brooklyn and other colonial states. Here's the Schneck House: It's the original Schenck House which was the family house of one of the settlers of the Dutch Colony of I think present day Flatbush. The Museum also has rooms from colonial South Carolina, Connecticut, 1920's New York. It was very cool to walk through and see how folks lived. (They were so short!)

Last but not least, what is unique (at least I think) about the Brooklyn Museum is they have a publicly accessible Collection Storage area. A humidity and temperature regulated space, it contains a large portion of the Museum's collection which it can't display due to space constraint. Nearly every Museum actually usually has more art stored behind the scenes then it actually displays to the public, it simply doesn't have enough wall space. The Brooklyn Museum, I think takes this in stride and allows both the protection and storage of it's collection but also the public a glimpse at as much of their art as possible. I managed to snap a picture for you to see what it was like:


If I haven't been able to convince you yet to visit the Brooklyn Museum perhaps this picture will tip the scale:


Yes, That is Three kinds of Beer and two kinds of wine, in the museum cafe. If you don't love this Museum by now, then clearly we cannot be friends. I did take a few more pictures of the nearby main Brooklyn Public Library and Grand Army plaza, which you're welcome to check out in my Flickr feed, I might include them in a general post about Prospect Park, but this entry would be HUGE if I included them too!

Hope you enjoyed my adventure to the Brooklyn Museum!

Kosciuszko Bridge

This will just be a quick "adventure" entry. Regrettably I was over served last night and so I am dealing with an epic hangover and a gashed and bleedy leg.

Let me explain.

Last night started off as any other night, had made plans to go to MOMA to see the Tim Burton exhibit with a friend and then it was decided that we should visit the fine drinking establishments of Brooklyn. How could we go wrong.

We started our evening off at my lovely neighborhood pizza place, whose charm is slowly being eaten away by it's complete lack of service. Although it has absolutely amazing pizza, it's windows announce what you're in for, in Niçois, the French dialect of Nice, is written "I don't give a shit, I'm from Nice." Midway through our dinner the waiter walked out for what I thought was a cigarette, except he never came back. Today I found out that my flatmate saw him in the local bar down the block, having a drink, about the same time we were having Pizza. Of course, I'll still go back, because it's amazing pizza, but I'll just lower my expectations.

Anyway, we then hopped on the G and took it to Metropolitan and Lorimer and visited the aptly named Metropolitan bar/lounge/place. It was pretty nice, Brooklyn Hipster central, I was in heaven really. We stayed there for a bit and then reaching the point of drinking exhaustion and getting sleep, we decided to head back to the Heights. This is where the adventures comes in.

The G was shut down for the night, we had to take a cab. The reader should note that trying to find a yellow cab in the outer Boroughs, regardless of the night is not an easy task, the reader should also note that trying to find a cab and then telling the driver how to get home, also not an easy task, when you've forgotten which borough you're in. I thought I was in Queens, and after the driver had some confusion about where I actually lived, I announced that we had to take the bridge whose name I can't pronounce, because we're in Queens and have to get to Brooklyn, did he realize just how lost I really was. We luckily made it home, after a nice conversation with the Israeli cab driver, who I thought was French and the only war wound I'm left with is a wicked gash on my leg from my bed. Apparently at 24 I need corner guards.

So that dear reader is why you'll have to get by without lovely flashy pictures and instead take pity on this poor soul who went into the ring with Brooklyn last night and lost.

Breukelen Hoogtes!

Hello again,

Well for those of you non-dutch speakers (myself included *Thank you Google Translate!*) the title of this entry is the closest approximation of the current name for Manhattan's first commuter town, Brooklyn Heights, in Dutch! According to the Brooklyn Historical society, the first permanent settlement began soon after the transference of land from Native American chiefs to Europeans in 1636. Now, for thecynics among you, try to keep in mind, the Dutch were pretty good about trading fairly for land. They avoided conflict as much as they could with the native people for two reasons, first war interrupted commerce and commerce was the reason for the entire settlements existence and two they lacked for the most part the religious conviction that allowed certain other Europeans *cough* English *cough*; who often decided that this new world was theirs and well anyone who might have thought they owned/possessed/pitched a hut upon it could just go some place else.

So yes, Brooklyn still has everywhere proof that the Dutch were here, the most obvious is the Breukelen Apartments which I found while wandering around the Heights (and freezing my ass off).

(Hopefully you can see the tiny print on the sign)

The area though is likely most famous for it's association with George Washington. In fact it has (which is oh so common in America) a "George Washington was here!!!!" sign.

Apparently during the Battle of Long Island George Washington set up camp here. What the giant stone tablet neglects to mention is that the British trounced the Americans and went on to occupy New York for the remainder of the American Revolutionary War. FUN!

The tablet, though it lacks a full perpective of the Battle of Long Island certainly has a lovely view of Manhattan and the Brooklyn Bridge, which isn't surprising considering it sits in the aptly named Brooklyn Bridge Park. Look at the views!

(That's the Brooklyn Bridge and Lower Manhattan)

Looking south from the park you also get a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty, which can only be viewed from the front while standing in Brooklyn, unless you want to rent a boat or come as steerage.

(That tiny little blip on the horizon is the Statue)

Also close to Brooklyn Heights is the Brooklyn Borough Hall, which originally served as the City Hall, when the borough was an independent city.


This little stretch of park is absolutely gorgeous in the summer time, you get a nice breeze off the water and people usually walk dogs and fly kites and just hang around taking in the site. In winter time, in below freezing weather, it makes for frozen limbs.

So that's about it, apologies for the awful HTML coding and the complete lack of context. This trip was sort of spur of the moment and completely unplanned, but I figured a rough start is good as any. I have my sights on the Brooklyn Public Library, The Brewery and The Grand Army Plaza Farmer's Market for future adventures!
Until next week,
Brian

First post ever.

Hello Internet.

My name is Brian and I'm a 24 year old part-time grad student at Hunter, full-time-ish Barista. I've just moved to Brooklyn, into a pretty little area where Fort Green/Clinton Hill, Prospect Heights and Bed-Sty meet. Technically my zip code is Prospect Heights so that's what we're working with here.

My goal for this Blog is to have it be part-travel, part-adventure, part-documentary journal. Basically I plan on taking you along on my adventures, both so you can see them and so that I can remember them. My goal is to do one fun thing a week and write about it.

I'm still in the process of moving in and have so far discovered my Grocery store (which has quite a nice selection), my Pizza place (which is a weird combination of French and Italian, but OMG delicious pizza), My Liquor store, or at least where it lives, having not ventured into it and the subway lines that connect me to the world.

This should be a lovely adventure and I hope you join me for the ride.