Putting on "The Ritz" and the Museum of the City of New York

After our weekend staying with friends in Brooklyn, New York, (see that post on this link), my husband had to report to his Manhattan office, as the reason for his portion of the trip was to attend an important meeting being held Tuesday. The company he works for had regional managers report in for this meeting and put them up at the downtown Manhattan Ritz Carlton Hotel at Battery Park. As you can see from my photo of the hotel (above) it was raining heavily in Manhattan during our visit, and photo opportunities were hard to come by.

This is the view from the front of the hotel on West Street, looking towards the new One World Trade Center tower.

The inside lobby and reception area of the Ritz Carton Hotel, Battery Park.

Our room was obviously a business class and not one of the luxury suites, but it was very comfortable. The views we had were of West Street, as you can see by the photos at the bottom of the photo collage. If I craned my neck I could get a slight glimpse of One World Trade Center which was north, but mainly I could see the co-ops and condos across the street, and the traffic coming out of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. I liked the large bathroom with separate tub and walk-in shower in our room, and also the very large walk-in closet that lit up automatically when the doors were opened. If you knew how much I spent for my breakfast of Eggs Benedict at the hotel you would be astounded -- I know I was! *Smile* It was very good, but I thought the hash brown "patty" was pretty skimpy.

I wanted to put a photo up from the hotel website of the beautiful view the western facing rooms have of the harbor and the Statue of Liberty, but I now hesitate to put up photos without permission after reading this article on BlogHer.   If you'd like to see that view, please go to this link on the hotel's website gallery to see the other room accommodations.

On Monday, my friend and I spent the day out on Long Island at Tanger Outlet Center.  It was one of our favorite trips to make together when I lived in Brooklyn. We went for old times sake, even though I wasn't going to be able to do much shopping on this occasion, but it was fun to window shop and have a chance to do a lot of catch up talking on the ride. On Tuesday, my friend met me in Manhattan and we decided to spend another rainy day at a museum we had never visited before. We chose the Museum of the City of New York.  The Museum of the City of New York is a history and art museum located at 1220-1227 Fifth Avenue, from 103rd to 104th Street, across from Central Park in the East Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan.

The elegant main lobby inside the museum.

This Youtube video will give you an overview of the museum and show some of it's past and present exhibitions. Direct link to this video on Youtube is on this link


One of the ongoing exhibits we enjoyed was called "Gilded New York."  You can read the definition of the gilded age in New York City in the museum's exhibit below.

 Click to enlarge the above photo, and all photos in this post, for easier viewing.

The exhibition presents a lavish display of jewelry, portraits, dresses, decorative items and other objects that are from the era between the mid-1870s and the early 20th century 

You can click on the photo collage to enlarge it and you can see close up photos of many of the objects in the exhibit in the image gallery on the museum's web site.

Another ongoing exhibit is the Marine Paintings, which chronicle an important part of New York City's rich maritime history. This painting by Edward Moran is entitled: "Unveiling the Statue of Liberty."

The museum did not allow photographs of the exhibit about Norman Bel Geddes, who has been called the "Leonardo da Vinci of the 20th Century".  Bel Geddes was a leader in the '20s and '30s in industrial and theater design, and there was a fascinating collection of his original works on display of his dynamic vision of the American future. This interesting exhibit runs until February 10, 2014.

The next exhibit we visited is called Rising Waters: Photographs of Sandy, and runs until March 31, 2014.

The exhibit is being presented to mark the one year anniversary of  Hurricane Sandy.  The museum made an open call for photographic images from the storm, and over 1,000 photographers, both professional and amateur, responded with the submission of tens of thousands of photos.

This map in the exhibit shows, with the color blue, how the five boroughs of the City of New York, and some of the surrounding areas of New Jersey, that were impacted by water surge of Hurricane Sandy. Dark blue areas were inundated with as high as almost 19 feet of flooding. 17% of the city's landmass was flooded, with an estimated 33 billion dollars of damage done to New York City.

Click to enlarge to read this epic storm and the impact it had on the city.

The juried exhibition of photographs features the before and after the impact of the storm on the New York Region, including preparations, the hurricanes destructive effects, and the ongoing rebuilding efforts. To see close-ups of many of the photos from the exhibit you can click here to view them on Time Magazine's lightbox feature.

Photo of a portion of the temporary debris dump placed in Riis Park, of all the destroyed possessions of those affected by the hurricane. Citywide, there was 700,000 tons of debris.

I lived through Hurricane Sandy last year, and it was an event I will never forget. We were very fortunate that our house did not flood, although houses two blocks away from us in both directions had up to seven feet of water pour down into their basements during the storm's surge. I will never forget the screams I heard reverberate through my neighborhood at that moment. I saw panicked people running down my street screaming: "The water is coming!" and afterward the many sirens from emergency vehicles. For the second time in his career, my husband was displaced from his workplace-the first was on 9-11, when 7 World Trade Center collapsed. That was the building where his office was located. After Hurricane Sandy, his office building on Water Street in Manhattan had been extremely flooded with the water filling sub-basements and up to half the lobby with water from the East River.  It took many months before they were able to work in that building again.
My husband and I were also in the process of trying to sell our home at the time of the hurricane, and the sale basically came to a standstill for a few months afterward.  We felt very fortunate to have survived this storm unscathed, however, and tried our best to volunteer to help in local areas that were not so lucky. Rebuilding goes on till this day, and there are many areas of the coastline that will never be the same.

I'm glad the museum has documented this storm for their archives for future generations to see and learn from. They even have a phone number set up where you can leave a short message about your experience during the storm for their archives. See the bottom of the exhibit page for that number

I would definitely not hesitate to return to the Museum of the city of New York on a future visit, and hopefully have a chance to see the section of Central Park that is located across the street from the front of the museum on a fairer weather day. I hope you will consider a visit too!

My husband and I flew back to Colorado the next morning and it felt so good to be home. When I now look at the foothills of the front range I am so happy. Life is certainly different on this side of the country, but I really feel like I belong here now, and it's a wonderful new adventure full of many things I want to explore and experience in the west. It's certainly nice to feel at home in two such beautiful states!