Big Apple Day

Klaus and I decided that spending Saturday, June 29, in New York City would be good fun.  Getting there became much easier when I learned from Fletcher Walls at the Historical Society that bus service is available from Doylestown to the Port Authority Bus Terminal (PABT) at 42nd St.

Unfortunately, I forgot that we were supposed to buy our bus tickets at the Country Store in Doylestown on Friday for use the next day.  Showing up for the 7:20 a.m. bus without tickets resulted in minor difficulties and some extra expense.  However, the bus proved a simple, economical, and reasonably quick way to see the Big Apple.

Klaus especially wanted to visit the Guggenheim Museum of Modern Art.  After arriving at PABT shortly before 10:00, we took a cab to the Guggenheim and got in line.  Those with tickets moved inside quickly.  Those without stood in line for about half an hour.  (Note that tickets are becoming a theme for this adventure!)

The iconic Guggenheim is itself a work of modern art.

Klaus waits.  Saturday is museum day for New Yorkers!

Turrell's "Aten Reign".

Normally a visitor can take the elevator to the top of the Guggenheim and then spiral down to the ground floor, savoring the works displayed in the bays lining the walkway.  This time, however, a special exhibit — James Turrell's Aten Reign 2013 — had taken over the museum's rotunda.  For the duration of this exhibit, only the halls off the walkway were set up for display; all other artworks had been removed to storage.

Born in 1943, Turrell is an American who works primarily with light and space.  For example, his "lightspace" is a room accommodating about 15 persons, with a hole at the top which admits light.  Viewers are to experience the interaction of the light and the space.  For the Guggenheim exhibit, Turrell has enclosed the rotunda in fabric, which is illuminated by a intense and changing array of colors.  Turrell wants the train people to spend more time looking at art.  Lots of people did so at the Guggenheim, sitting around the margins of the rotenda at the ground floor level and gazing upward as Turrell's fabric changed color.

Our next stop was the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan.  Klaus and I walked across Central Park, intending to find a cab there.  However, I suggested we try the subway as a faster and less expensive alternative.  It was indeed!  We hopped a C Train and soon found ourselves in the Financial District.  And, also, in the middle of a run for the New York Fire Department!

Klaus at the Chambers St. Station.

We never did learn what kind of emergency the NYFD
was responding to.

After grabbing a quick sandwich for lunch, Klaus and I walked a few blocks south and found ourselves at the World Trade Center site.  Here new buildings are rising to replace those destroyed in the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001.

One of the new WTC towers.

Klaus at the new tower.

Another view, with cranes.

On impulse, I decided that I would like to see the 9/11 Memorial.  I assumed one could simply walk there, get in line, and see the shrine.  Not so!  As at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, crowds are substantial.  Those who operate the Memorial use timed passes (tickets for specific time periods) to control the number of people accessing the Memorial.  That would be perfectly obvious to anyone who checks the group's web site.

The Memorial entrance is this way; tickets are the other way.

The Memorial which we, being ticketless, could not see.

Unfortunately, I had not looked at the web site.  More irritating was the fact that nothing about tickets graced the signs pointing the way to the Memorial's entrance.  Only after getting to the entrance did I learn that a pass was required, and said pass was available only at the Memorial's "preview facility" six blocks away.  (The passes are "free" — no charge if obtained at the site, or online for a $2 service charge.)

Adding another dozen blocks of walking to our day's adventure, not to mention another hour or more standing in lines on a very hot afternoon, did not appeal.  We had to be back at PABT around 5:00 to catch our bus to Doylestown.  Accordingly, we left without seeing the Memorial.  The security guard to whom I ventilated about tickets must have thought me a perfect jerk.  However, I'm sure I am not the first person to show up without a pass, and saying something about tickets on the signage would be both easy and helpful.

Klaus at the coffee shop.

The seminary's new entrance on 21st St.

On 9th Avenue a large apartment building has replaced
the library and offices I remember.

After getting a cup of coffee in the Financial District, Klaus and I took the subway to the 23rd St. Station and from there walked over to The General Theological Seminary, my alma mater, which takes up the block between 9th and 10th Avenues and 20th and 21st Streets.  Much has changed since I was last in New York City in the early 1990s.  In order to meet the school's financial needs, GTS has developed an apartment building on 9th Avenue, a hotel on 10th Avenue, and is making other profitable uses of its land-holding.  The main entrance is now on 21st Street.  Alas, the grounds were closed for the weekend, so I could not take Klaus on a tour of the Close.  (Profitable indeed.  A two bedroom apartment in Chelsea can rent for upwards of $8,000 per month.)

However, we did stroll for awhile in the seminary's Chelsea neighborhood.  When I was attending school here in 1981-84, Chelsea was just beginning the process of "gentrification" — people moving into the neighborhood to fix up dilapidated homes, and retailers opening trendy stores.  Nearly 30 years later that process has yielded a vibrant neighborhood with only a few occupants still around from my time.  One of those is the Joyce Theater, 8th Ave. at W. 19th St., which is devoted to modern dance.  Check out their web site here.

St. Peter's Episcopal Church, a half-block from the seminary,
is where I did much of my seminary field work.

The Joyce Theater dances on 30 years later!

Looking north on 8th Avenue.  Chelsea has become an upscale
area in which to live and shop.

After a brief tour of Chelsea Klaus and I made our way back to the Port Authority and, before long, back to Doylestown. •••