A History Lover's Guide to New York City

In the late nineteenth century, the wealthy wanted elegance for themselves. They wanted grandeur for their city. leaders of major American metropolitan areas built museums, libraries, post offices and train stations that were as magnificent as they were functional. This “City Beautiful” movement occurred across the United states. In New York, it would be on a scale so large and impressive that it would forever enhance the city’s stature.

After the Civil War ended in 1865, rich Americans traveled to Europe, where they visited museums of art and natural history in london, Paris, Berlin and rome. At the time, nothing comparable existed in the United states. Returning home, the wealthy worked to create museums in the United states. Between 1870 and 1890, the cities of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, st. louis and Washington, D.C., opened significant art museums.

In an 1866 visit to Paris, New Yorkers met with the grandson of Founding Father John Jay, also named John Jay. The younger Jay was a prominent New York lawyer and also a diplomat. Jay urged them to found a national museum of art similar to the louvre in Paris. When Jay returned to New York City, plans began in earnest to create such an institution. William Cullen Bryant, the editor in chief of the New York Evening Post, took a particularly active part in the undertaking. He and other city leaders succeeded in establishing the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1870. The museum found temporary shelter until its own grand building could be constructed. Initial Metropolitan holdings consisted of 174 Dutch and French paintings, including some still on display today, such as nicolas Poussin’s Midas Washing at the Source of the Pactolus.

When the museum formally opened in 1880, President rutherford B. Hayes was on hand for the dedication ceremony. The museum’s principal façade—a Victorian Gothic structure designed by Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mould—faced Central Park. Today, the Metropolitan Museum of Art remains the only major building constructed on land allocated to Central Park. It is still possible to view the west façade of the original building in the robert lehman Wing.

Years and many additions have turned the museum toward 5^th Avenue. The current entryway, at 82^nd street, is through the imposing three arches designed by architect richard Morris Hunt that were added in 1902. The Hunt addition, completed by his son richard Howland Hunt after his father’s death, includes the Great Hall where visitors first enter the museum. Architects McKim, Mead & White designed the north and south wings on 5^th Avenue, which were added in 1906. A master plan by architects roche, Dinkeloo & Associates was initiated in 1971 and completed in 1991. As part of this plan, new additions to the central building have contributed to the further enlargement and splendor of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, including the robert lehman Wing, the sackler Wing, the American Wing, the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, the lila Acheson Wallace Wing and the Henry r. Kravis Wing.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the world’s preeminent collections of art. Its holdings include the greatest assembly of American art in the world, a major collection of European masters and impressionists, the largest holdings of Egyptian art outside of Cairo, the exceptional Costume Institute and celebrated collections of Asian, near Eastern, African and oceanic Art. In 1938, the Metropolitan Museum added to its stature when it opened the Cloisters Museum and Gardens in Fort tyron Park on the Hudson river. The Cloisters, built to resemble a medieval monastery, was based on the extensive collection of medieval art belonging to George Grey Barnard, a sculptor in his own right. Funding to create the Cloisters as part of the Metropolitan Museum came from John D. Rockefeller Jr.

John D. Rockefeller Jr.’s wife, Abby, was a key founder of another important New York City museum, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). MoMA dates to 1929 and to the support of Abby rockefeller, lillie Bliss and Mary Quinn sullivan, who shared a devotion to modern art. From the beginning, MoMA has been one of the world’s foremost collections of modern and contemporary art.

In 1930, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, an artist as well as an offspring of the Vanderbilt family who married into yet more wealth, offered five hundred modern American paintings to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The museum rejected the offer as it deemed the paintings too contemporary.

Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney took her paintings and her money and founded the Whitney Museum. The museum was at first located in four town houses on West 8^th street in the Village. It was the first museum dedicated strictly to American art. The Whitney played a significant role in bringing American art to the world’s attention. Today, it is the foremost museum in the world of American contemporary art.

Another outstanding New York City art museum is the Guggenheim. The foundation of the Guggenheim Museum’s collection was the personal art of solomon r. Guggenheim (1937), a wealthy businessman whose fortune came from the gold mining industry. His niece Peggy Guggenheim contributed art and effort to make this museum, which opened in 1959, a reality.

In addition to art museums, New Yorkers considered public libraries to be a hallmark of a cultivated and prominent city. The first American privately funded library with free public access was the Astor library in New York City. Founded by John Jacob Astor, it opened in 1854. Another important library was the lenox library, founded by James lenox to serve as an institution of scholarly research. The lenox library building, later demolished, was on the site now occupied by the Frick Collection. In 1895, samuel tilden bequeathed funds to establish the research collection of the New York Public library by combining the Astor library and the lenox library into this one grand library. The City of New York donated land for a new building on the condition that the library be public.

The New York Public library was constructed on land along 5^th Avenue between 40^th and 42^nd streets. This land was previously the Croton reservoir, built in 1842 to provide the first fresh drinking water to New York City. The reservoir was relocated to make way for the library. The beautiful iron-andglass Crystal Palace stood on this site from 1853 until it burned in 1858. The New York Public library’s white marble Beaux-Arts building, designed by John M. Carrere and thomas Hastings, opened in 1911. It is considered by many to be the finest example of Beaux-Arts architecture in New York City. “Beaux Arts” was named for the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, which trained many prominent American architects in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Grandeur, balance, arches and colonnades were key elements of the Beaux-Arts style. It drew on ancient Greece and rome for inspiration.

The front entrance to the New York Public library building, set back from 5^th Avenue, has wide steps leading to magnificent arches. Flanking the steps are two proud and majestic stone lions in tennessee marble by Edward Clark Potter. These lions, imbued with the sense that what they are guarding is very important, were originally called leo Astor and leo lenox after John Jacob Astor and James lenox, whose contributions made possible the New York Public library. However, during the Great Depression of the 1930s, New York City mayor Fiorella laGuardia renamed the lions “Patience” and “Fortitude,” the qualities New Yorkers would most need to survive those difficult times. Today, Patience, sitting to the south of the entrance, and Fortitude, sitting to the north, continue to inspire New Yorkers and other visitors with their resoluteness and dignity. On the west side of the library is Bryant Park, which dates to 1871. The park, named for William Cullen Bryant, has a statue of Bryant, as well as benches and grass, offering a moment of repose in hectic midtown Manhattan.

Complementing the venues for art and for learning were important sites for music. The 3,700-seat Metropolitan opera House opened in 1883 on Broadway between 39^th and 40^th streets. The Metropolitan opera soon supplanted the older Academy of Music, whose leaders, the Astors, had snubbed the Vanderbilts, the Morgans and other new money New Yorkers, refusing them entry. As it turned out, the Academy could not compete with the new Met. It closed its doors three years after the Metropolitan opera House opened. The Met has had a long and distinguished history since 1883. The celebrated tenor Enrico Caruso made his American debut with the Metropolitan opera on november 23, 1903. From 1908 to 1915, the great Arturo toscanini was the orchestra conductor. The original Metropolitan opera House was demolished in 1967 after the Met had moved to lincoln Center.

Andrew Carnegie contributed $2 million to build a home in 1891 for the oratorio society. Carnegie, who enjoyed singing, was president of the oratorio society. Carnegie chose as the architect for the new building a young unknown named William Burnet tuthill, a fellow member of the oratorio society. The celebrated russian composer Peter tchaikovsky conducted the orchestra for the opening concert on May 5, 1891. The New York Philharmonic orchestra made Carnegie Hall its home until it left for lincoln Center in 1962.

Nowhere else in the world is there a venue for artistic and musical performances as large and as varied as New York City’s lincoln Center. Promoted as a concept by John D. Rockefeller 3^rd and other city leaders, it took a major step toward reality in the May 14, 1959 groundbreaking ceremony, which President Dwight D. Eisenhower attended. The sixteen-acre complex near Columbus Circle has thirty indoor and outdoor performance areas that offer opera, the ballet, chamber and orchestral music, as well as jazz, theater, film and, each fall, the circus. The Metropolitan opera, the New York City Philharmonic orchestra and the New York City Ballet make their home in lincoln Center.

YOUR GUIDE TO HISTORY

Images

The steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Courtesy of James Maher.

235 Bowery at Prince Street • Manhattan/Bowery
212-219-1222 • www.newmuseum.org • Admission Fee

The museum space designed by Japanese architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa reflect the museum’s mission to be open to new ideas, artistic concepts and forms. Founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker, the New Museum focuses on contemporary art by living artists.

425 Lafayette Street • Manhattan/Greenwich Village
212-539-8500 • www.publictheater.org • Admission Fee

This building was originally the Astor Library. It opened in 1854 as the first library in the United States intended for the general public. John Jacob Astor built the library over a period of thirty years in the style of an Italian Renaissance palace. After the New York Public Library on 5^th Avenue at 42^nd Street opened in 1911, number 425 Lafayette Street closed as a library. For a while, it housed the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.

The old Astor Library was almost torn down in 1965 but was saved by the Landmarks Preservation Commission and by Joseph Papp, director of the Shakespeare Festival Public Theater. Today, it is the Joseph Papp Public Theater. The theater offers regular performances of plays by Shakespeare. It often serves as the off-Broadway venue for shows that become hits and move to larger theaters on Broadway. In the summer, the theater gives free outdoor performances of Shakespeare’s plays at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park.

99 Gansevoort Street • Manhattan/Meatpacking District
212-570-3600 • www.whitney.org • Admission Fee

The dramatic, open and airy building by architect Renzo Piano now housing the Whitney Museum opened in 2015. In addition to holding the world’s most important collection of twentieth-century and contemporary American art, the museum has outdoor terraces with views across Lower Manhattan. The large presence of the Whitney in the Meatpacking District is further indication that this New York neighborhood has evolved from industrial to artistic and residential. The Whitney is located at the southernmost point of the High Line. In addition to its permanent collection, the museum hosts rotating exhibits, films, lectures and musical performances. From 1966 to 2014, the Whitney was housed in a granite Bauhaus-style building by architect Marcel Breuer located at 945 Madison Avenue. The Metropolitan Museum of Art plans to open the Met Breuer in this former Whitney space in 2016.

New York General Post Office 421 8^th Avenue between 31^st and 33^rd Streets • Manhattan/Garment District

The colonnaded Beaux-Arts structure designed by McKim, Mead & White opened in 1914 as the largest post office in the United States. This architectural team also designed the beautiful Penn Station on the other side of 8th Avenue that was demolished in 1963. Preliminary plans would move the Amtrak terminal from the current dreadful Penn Station location across the street to this beautiful and grand building. This will take years. The New York General Post Office is named the James A. Farley Post Office for the New Yorker who served as United States postmaster general under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The exterior bears the inscription from Herodotus that serves as the unofficial motto of the United States Postal Service: “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”

New York Public Library 5^th Avenue at West 42^nd Street • Manhattan/Midtown
917-275-6975 • www.nypl.org • Free

There are regularly scheduled guided tours of the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, named for a principal benefactor of the New York Public Library on 5^th Avenue. In 1886, Samuel Tilden, a former governor of New York State and presidential candidate, willed the Tilden Trust to establish a free library for the public in New York City. Ten years later, the Tilden Trust, in combination with the Astor and Lenox Libraries, formed the New York Public Library. Municipal funds financed the construction of the magnificent Beaux Arts marble building by architectural firm Carrere & Hastings on 5^th Avenue at 42^nd Street. President William Howard Taft presided over the dedication ceremony of the library on May 23, 1911.

Andrew Carnegie contributed funds to add branch library buildings throughout New York City. Many of these continue to operate today. The NYPL remains dependent on private funding as it operates as a not-forprofit corporation in cooperation with the government of the City of New York. It is not only a critical asset for the people of New York, but it also offers around-the-clock and around-the-globe access to information and research material through its extensive online resources.

The NYPL holds a number of important collections that are intended for serious scholarship. It is possible for visitors to peek into a number of reading rooms, such as the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American literature in room 320. The collection has a special focus on British novelist Charles Dickens, who spent a month in New York City in 1843. It has a mahogany writing table, an armchair and a brass lamp that belonged to Dickens, as well as a letter opener with the handle made of a forepaw of the author’s cat Bob.

The 1877 lenox library, a reference library founded by James lenox, was on the site now occupied by the Frick Museum. The Astor library, founded by John Jacob Astor, opened in 1854 in the East Village as the first American privately funded library with free public access. Portraits of many members of the Astor family and other distinguished New Yorkers line the walls of the solomon room on the second floor. In addition to serving as a photo gallery, it functions as an Internet reading room.

Enter the schwarzman building through the impressive Astor Hall, named for John Jacob Astor, with its thirty-seven-foot-high ceiling and dazzling interior of white Vermont marble. The impressive third-floor McGraw rotunda, built in the Beaux-Arts style, makes extensive use of marble and murals to awe visitors. Appropriate for a library, the Edward laning murals tell the story of the recorded word from Moses and the stone tablets to linotype, or type-setting, machines, the latest thing when the murals were completed. Prometheus, on the ceiling, is bringing mankind the gift of fire, in this case symbolizing knowledge. The Gutenberg Bible on display in the rotunda was originally in the lenox library.

The rotunda serves as the vestibule to the celebrated rose Main reading room. With its historic ceiling currently undergoing restoration, the rose Main reading room will reopen to the public in 2017. There are also many other areas of the nYPl with beautiful murals, woodwork and light fixtures. It is a national Historic landmark.

Bryant Park, described in Chapter 6, is directly behind the schwarzman Building.

11 West 53^rd Street between 5^th and 6^th Avenues • Manhattan/Midtown
212-708-9400 • www.moma.org • Admission Fee

The greatest collection of modern and contemporary art in the world is in the Museum of Modern Art, or MOMA, as it is affectionately known. MOMA has been in its current Edward Durrell Stone building since 1939. It is located not far from where the Rockefellers lived. Philip Johnson designed the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden, an inviting outdoor space for visitors to pause. Cesar Pelli was the architect for an extensive 1984 addition and Yoshio Taniguchi for an even larger space in 2006.

MOMA’s collection focuses on paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints, photographs, films and design. It regularly stages new exhibitions, drawing upon its own extensive holdings and loans from other museums. Gallery talks, lectures and activities for adults and children are part of its multitude of offerings. There is an array of guided tours for visitors, including a museum highlights tour. MOMA is one of the foremost research institutions in the world for modern and contemporary art.

881 7^th Avenue at 57^th Street • Manhattan/Midtown
212-247-7800 • www.carnegiehall.org • Admission Fee

With three auditoriums that have a combined seating capacity of over 3,600, Carnegie Hall is an active and prestigious site for classical and popular musical performances. One-hour public tours of Carnegie Hall are available October through June. The tour includes the Rose Museum, funded by the Susan and Elihu Rose Foundation. Manuscripts, photographs and other historical treasures in the museum detail the history of the building and the many outstanding performances by storied artists. It is also possible to take a self-guided tour of the Rose Museum. Carnegie Hall, known for its wonderful acoustics, was designed by architect William Burnet Tuthill and opened in 1891. When the New York Philharmonic Orchestra left Carnegie Hall for Lincoln Center in 1962, Carnegie Hall was to be torn down. However, violinist Isaac Stern led the successful effort to save Carnegie Hall. The principal performance venue in Carnegie Hall is named Stern Auditorium in his honor.

Although across Central Park South from Central Park, the Grand Army Plaza is actually part of the 843-acre park. Completed in 1916, the plaza is named in honor of the Civil War Union army, whose formal name was the Grand Army of the Potomac. Deliberately designed to be in two sections, in the northern half of the plaza stands a gilded bronze statue of one of the Union’s most successful generals, General William Tecumseh Sherman, by Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Sherman moved to New York City after the Civil War. He was a popular figure as he rode his horse and carriage through Central Park. In the southern half of the plaza is the Pulitzer Fountain, designed by sculptor Karl Bitter with the statue of the figure of abundance at the top.

2 Columbus Circle • Manhattan/Midtown
212-299-7777 • www.madmuseum.org • Admission Fee

The Museum of Arts and Design celebrates innovation in the creation of all forms of crafts, arts and design. It has a large permanent collection that includes wearable art and jewelry and also rotating exhibits. A unique aspect of this museum is that it offers visitors the opportunity to interact with artists in the creative process through its open studios program. Founded by Aileen Osborn Webb in 1956, the museum has been in its current building, designed by Brad Cloepfil, since 2008.

10 Lincoln Center Plaza • Manhattan/Upper West Side
212-875-5456 • www.lincolncenter.org • Admission Fee

Lincoln Center is sixteen acres of culture in Manhattan. As you face the central plaza—the Jose Robertson Plaza—you look toward the Metropolitan Opera House (opened in 1966) with the David H. Koch Theater on the left (opened in 1964) and Avery Fisher Hall on the right (opened in 1962 as home to the New York Philharmonic Orchestra). Architect Wallace Harrison created the overall master plan and designed the Metropolitan Opera House. Other buildings are the work of well-known architects, including Philip Johnson and Eero Saarinen.

Key buildings are the Vivian Beaumont Theater, the Julliard School and the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. The Big Apple Circus has performed in Damrosch Park at Lincoln Center each fall to winter season since 1981. Nearby the main campus is Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola for jazz.

For visitors, the David Rubenstein Atrium, on Broadway between 62^nd and 63^rd Streets adjacent to Lincoln Center, offers information and ticketing, including discount ticketing to many performances both at Lincoln Center and other venues around the city. There are also many free performances at Lincoln Center in a wide variety of the musical, theater and film arts. Lincoln Center is without peer in the world of cultural entertainment.

2 Lincoln Square at Columbus Avenue and 66^th Street • Manhattan/Upper West Side
212-595-9533 • www.folkartmuseum.org • Free/Donation

“American” refers to the location of the museum rather than its collection, as the museum presents an international vision of folk art that is individualistic and self-taught. In recent years, the museum has also concentrated on art by African American and latino artists. It was the goal of Joseph Martinson and Adele Earnest to present the collection. First chartered as a museum in 1961, the Museum of American Folk Art has had several homes in New York City but has enjoyed its principal location in this building designed by tod Williams and Billie tsien since 2011.

212 West 83^rd Street • Manhattan/Upper West Side
212-721-1223 • www.cmom.org • Admission Fee

This is a museum that invites children, including very young children, to delve in. Interactive exhibits provide children of all backgrounds with experiences in adventures, healthy lifestyles, creativity and world cultures.

643 Park Avenue between 66^th and 67^th Streets • Manhattan/Upper East Side
212-616-3937 • www.armoryonpark.org • Admission Fee

There is an online registration form to schedule a tour of the magnificent rooms of the Park Avenue Armory. This 1881 Gothic revival building, designed to resemble a fortress, was built by and for the seventh regiment of the national Guard of New York. It offers one of the most significant nineteenth-century interiors in the United states. The fifty-five-thousandsquare-foot Wade thompson Drill Hall, with its eighty-foot-high barrel vaulted roof, amazes visitors that such an enormous interior space exists in New York City. The seventh regiment was a military unit of Gilded Age New York aristocrats, including the Vanderbilts, roosevelts, livingstons and Harrimans. The armory actually functioned more as a social club than as a military site. The architect, Charles W. Clinton, was a member of the seventh regiment. There are many interior rooms with beautiful woodwork, stained glass and marble that were the creation of noted architects and artists, including the Herter brothers, stanford White and louis Comfort tiffany. In addition to offering tours of the building, the armory is a venue for unconventional and cutting-edge artistic performances. It is also a national Historic landmark.

945 Madison Avenue at 75^th Street • Manhattan/Upper East Side
212-535-7710 • www.metmuseum.org • Admission Fee

After the Whitney vacated this location, the Metropolitan Museum of Art decided to seize the opportunity to utilize the iconic Bauhaus-style building, designed by architect Marcel Breuer, for an extension of its twentieth- and twenty-first-century collections. It plans to use the space for educational outreach, lectures and performances in addition to displays of art. The Met Breuer opens in March 2016. Additional information is on the Metropolitan Museum website.

5^th Avenue from 82^nd to 105^th Streets • Manhattan/Upper East Side
212-606-2296 • www.museummilefestival.org • Free

One day each June every year since 1978, nine museums along 5^th Avenue from 82^nd to 105^th street open their doors to the public for free. To facilitate the public’s enjoyment, the city blocks all but pedestrian traffic on 5^th Avenue for the festival’s duration.

1000 5^th Avenue at 82^nd Street • Manhattan/Upper East Side
212-535-7710 • www.metmuseum.org • Admission Fee

The Met is a national treasure. Today, it is the largest museum in the Western Hemisphere. In addition to the main building on 5^th Avenue, the Cloisters in Morningside Heights and the Met Breuer on Madison Avenue are also part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Met’s collection of paintings includes one of the world’s most extensive holdings of rembrants, Vermeers, Breughels and rubens. Its galleries of impressionists are second only to the Gare d’orsay Museum in Paris. Manet, Monet, Cezanne, renoir and successors such as Van Gogh, Gauguin and seurat delight visitors. American artists, including Gilbert stuart, thomas Eakins, John singer sargent and James Whistler, are on display. There are furniture collections—even entire rooms. There is a sixteenth-century spanish courtyard and the fifteenth-century temple of Dendur, a magnificent gift from the government of Egypt. The Met, in fact, has the largest collection of Egyptian art and artifacts in the world outside of Egypt. Tours, gallery talks, concerts, other extensive programming and many special exhibits, in addition to the permanent collection, allow visitors to take full advantage of the Metropolitan Museum. An added factor is the easily understandable floor plan of the museum and the many helpful guards and information desk personnel who make a visit to the Met a time to relax and focus on the wonderful art and artifacts. The museum is a national Historic landmark.

There is an impressive memorial to architect richard Morris Hunt on the Central Park side of 5^th Avenue at 71^st street. The bust of Hunt is the work of Daniel Chester French, who also sculpted Abraham lincoln for the lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

1071 5^th Avenue at 89^th Street • Manhattan/Upper East Side
212-423-361 • www.guggenheim.org • Admission Fee

The Guggenheim in New York is well known for its Frank lloyd Wright dramatic geometric-design building with its high domed rotunda and continuous circular ramp. The Guggenheim Museum has an important permanent collection of mid-nineteenth-, twentieth- and twentieth-firstcentury international art works by Claude Monet, Paul Cezanne, Vincent VanGogh, Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani, Wassily Kandinsky and many, many others. The foundation of the museum’s collection was the personal art of solomon r. Guggenheim (1937), a wealthy businessman. His niece Peggy Guggenheim contributed art and effort to make the museum, which opened in 1959, a reality. The museum offers lectures, musical performances and other artistic opportunities. It is a national Historic landmark.

Today, the Guggenheim in New York is at the center of an international network of Guggenheim museums that includes institutions in Venice, Italy, and Bilbao, spain. A new Guggenheim in Abu Dhabi is underway.

1047 Amsterdam Avenue at 112^th Street • Manhattan/Morningside Heights
212-316-7540 • www.stjohndivine.org • Donation

With a length of 601 feet and a height at the nave of 124 feet, this is the largest cathedral in the world. Five thousand may attend Episcopal services here or one of the many concerts the cathedral hosts. Notable features are the rose Window, forty feet in diameter, and the celebrated Great organ. The idea of building this cathedral dates to the early part of the nineteenth century. Church officials laid the cornerstone in 1892 with its consecration not occurring until 1941. The cathedral remains unfinished today. The original architects were Heins & lafarge, though it was ralph Adams Cram who shaped the cathedral in the Gothic revival style. st. John the Divine wrote the Book of revelation that envisions the end of the world. There are symbolic references throughout the cathedral to st. John the Divine.

99 Margaret Corbin Drive, Fort Tyron Park • Manhattan/Morningside Heights
212-923-3700 • www.metmuseum.org • Admission Fee

The Cloisters is a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art that houses an extensive collection of medieval art. It opened to the public in 1938 with the support of John D. Rockefeller Jr. The museum building itself is designed to resemble a romanesque-style medieval monastery with courtyards and covered walkways adjoining the museum galleries. The location in northern Manhattan has beautiful gardens and a setting on the Hudson river. The museum offers tours. This is a wonderful setting for the many concerts and performances hosted by the Cloisters.

122^nd Street and Riverside Drive • Manhattan/Morningside Heights
212-666-1640 • www.nps.gov/gegr • Free

This is the largest mausoleum in north America. It is a national Park service site and a national Memorial. John Duncan, the architect, intended the massive size of the final resting place of Ulysses s. Grant to reflect the importance of this man. As the general commanding the Union forces, Grant saved the country, and as president (1869–77) he led the country through the war’s difficult aftermath. Ulysses s. Grant was a beloved hero. To build this imposing Classical-style monument, more people from around the world contributed more money than had occurred in any prior fundraising effort.

After his presidency, Ulysses s. Grant adopted New York City as his home. When he died in 1885, New York showed its appreciation when over one million people turned out for the funeral procession. After the dedication of Grant’s memorial by President William McKinley on April 27, 1897, the seventy-fifth anniversary of Grant’s birth, this was, for many years, the most popular tourist destination in New York City. The memorial also enjoyed renown as the focal point for a trick question: “Who is buried in Grant’s tomb?” In addition to the president himself, his wife, Julia, is also interred here.

Eastern Parkway at the main entrance to Prospect Park • Brooklyn
www.nycgovparks.org

A large traffic circle with myriad offshoot streets surrounds the impressively dignified soldiers’ and sailors’ Arch. The eighty-foot-high arch, designed by John H. Duncan, was dedicated in 1892 in honor of the Union soldiers and sailors who fought in the Civil War. President Grover Cleveland participated in the dedication. On top of the arch is a sculpture by Frederick MacMonnies of the winged goddess of victory in a large chariot. Within Grand Army Plaza are statues of historic figures, including a bust of President John F. Kennedy by sculptor neil Estern. It is a national Historic landmark.

200 Eastern Parkway • Brooklyn
718-638-5000 • www.brooklynmuseum.org • Admission Fee

The Brooklyn Museum is vast. Yet it is only one-fifth the size originally intended. Work on the museum began shortly before Brooklyn joined Manhattan to form a Greater New York in 1898. Once the two rival cities were united as one, it was no longer deemed as important to have so large a museum in Brooklyn. Yet the Brooklyn Museum remains one of the world’s great art museums, with a large and impressive collection of American art in its luce Center and a floor of Egyptian art, including the Mummy Chamber. The Brooklyn Museum of Art also houses a series of period rooms that provide insight into the way Americans lived. One of these rooms, the Moorish room, comes from the house of John D. Rockefeller. The building, designed by McKim, Mead & White, opened its doors in 1897.

22–25 Jackson Avenue at 46^th Street • Long Island City/Queens
718-784-2084 • www.momaps1.org • Admission Fee

This is an art exhibition space that focuses on emerging artists and new art forms, as well as performance art. The origins of the museum date to 1971. In 2000, the museum became an affiliate of the Museum of Modern Art.

Images

The Bow Bridge in Central Park. Courtesy of James Maher.