This essay is adapted from Chapter 3 of Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan: A Historical Guide. I’ve kept cross-references to other chapters in the book. Outdoor Monuments has been “translated” into a fabulous app that you can enjoy on your phone or tablet for the … Continue reading
Monthly Archives: November 2017
“The Bird,” by Victor Hugo Be like the bird, who Pausing in his flight On limb too slight Feels it give way beneath him Yet sings Knowing he has wings. I haven’t been able to discover who did the translation, … Continue reading
One of the things I love about New York is the way protection, in the form of gates, window guards, fences, etc., has been made gorgeous. Here are some of my favorite wrought-iron pieces. South of Houston Inside the former … Continue reading
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is a few blocks from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Isabella Stewart (b. 1840), daughter of a wealthy New York merchant, grew up in Manhattan and Paris and married Jack Gardner, a wealthy Bostonian. In … Continue reading
This post is adapted from the forthcoming Guides Who Know app on Central Park. Medium & size: Bronze, over lifesize. Location: Central Park, on the west side of Conservatory Lake, at about East 74th St. In 1819, 14-year-old Hans Christian … Continue reading
This is the third in a series of posts on Saint Gaudens’s Puritan, in Springfield, Massachusetts. Part 1 set out questions for you to consider when looking at the sculpture. Part 2 set out my answers to those questions, including first impressions … Continue reading
For earlier photos, see the Bridges tag in the Obsessions cloud at right. For a short time in the summer of 2017, the old and new Kosciuszko Bridges (1939 and 2017) crossed Newtown Creek side by side. Since it’s above … Continue reading
Part 2: My Analysis of the Puritan Before you dive into this, why not have a closer look at the Puritan on your own, with the questions in last week’s post? Then you’ll have the fun of violently agreeing or disagreeing … Continue reading
King Lear opens with Lear demanding that his daughters tell him how much they love him, before he divides his kingdom between them. In this ten-foot-wide painting of that scene, Abbey didn’t use the elaborately costumed figures to illustrate a … Continue reading