MUSEUM & THEATER

Park Avenue Armory

“The Seventh Regiment Armory set a standard of quality in the care taken with the building itself and especially in the lavish appointments on the interior that was never achieved elsewhere.” - Robert A.M. Stern, Architect

The Armory was built by New York State’s prestigious Seventh Regiment of the National Guard, the first volunteer militia to respond to President Lincoln’s call for troops in 1861. Members of what was known as the “Silk Stocking” Regiment included New York’s most prominent Gilded Age Families including the Vanderbilts, Van Rensselaers, Roosevelts, Stewarts, Livingstons and Harrimans. Built as both a military facility and a social club, the reception rooms on the first floor and the Company Rooms on the second floor were designed by the most prominent designers and artists of the day including Louis Comfort Tiffany, Stanford White, Herter Brothers and Pottier & Stymus. The Armory’s 55,000 square foot drill hall, reminiscent of the original Grand Central Depot and the great train sheds of Europe, remains one of the largest unobstructed spaces of its kind in New York. A marvel of engineering in its time, it was designed by Regiment veteran and architect Charles W. Clinton, later a partner of Clinton & Russell, architects of the Apthorp Apartments and the famed, now demolished, Astor Hotel.

Let me give you my take-away from the tour.

The Upper East Side of New York has been the neighborhood for the wealthy for many years.  In 1806, not that long after the Revolutionary War, cities formed militias for the protection of their communities.  New York had several regiments around the city, each with its own armory.  There was the Irish regiment, the Italian regiment, and the wealthy had their regiment.  The 7th Regiment had the best armory, the finest galas, and the best of everything a gentlemen's club would wish for.  Louis Comfort Tiffany was a member and designed one of the rooms in the armory.

At the beginning of the War between the States, Lincoln appealed to the 7th Regiment of New York City to come to Washington to protect the Capitol from the Southerners.  The 7th Regiment responded by going to Washington, DC in their Brooks Brothers uniforms with their meals being catered by Delmonico's Restaurant in New York City.  The South never attacked and the 7th Regiment returned home.

World War I changed everything for the 7th Regiment.  They were federalized and the "club" became a true military unit.  Approximately 50% of the members of the 7th Regiment that went to Europe were killed or injured.  Joining the 7th Regiment was not so much fun as when it was primarily a social club for the wealthy men of New York City and it slowly fell in membership and the armory fell into disrepair.

The armory is being refurbished back to its original glory to be used as a performance space.



Tonight we are attending Women of Will.

The play deconstructs and conjures William Shakespeare's most famous female characters. Actor Nigel Gore plays the Romeo to Ms. Packer's Juliet, the Petruchio to her Kate. Together Packer and Gore's stage alchemy creates the Shakespeare experience that Ben Brantley of The New York Times calls, “Marvelous!” and Jennifer Farrar of Associated Press hails as “Boundless and irresistible!”

Every scene was a "biggie."  That means almost 3 hours of rants, crying, threats, and love sonnets.  Pretty intense, but good.



Today it happened.  Spring is in full bloom!

No coats or sweaters. Beautiful weather.  And, the flowers are blooming all over the city.  Greeley Plaza is alive with flowers and people.

THEATER

Unexplored Interior
Jay O. Sanders

Tonight was a new experience for us.  We attended a "Pre-Production Reading" of a play about the genocide in Rwanda.

Several weeks ago we enjoyed an evening with the author of this play and his wife.  She is a former Tony Award winner.  He is well-known and respected in the theater community in New York.  It was then that they invited us to this reading.

The actors read the play before what was a capacity audience at the Museum of Jewish Heritage.  The house was about 250 people composed of theater lovers, potential investors, and members of the Rwandan Delegation to the United Nations.

What we saw was the normal incubation of getting a play's writing finalized, financed, and produced.

One of the jolts of the play involved Boutros Boutros Ghali.  The United Nations sent a small UN military force to keep the peace between the Hutus and the Tutsis and then try to stop the genocide.  The commander of the UN mission was a Canadian.  The UN force failed because the Hutus were so heavily armed.  Clinton and the USA knew and did nothing about the genocide.  Note from Wikipedia who armed the Hutus!

"According to investigative journalist Linda Melvern, Boutros-Ghali approved a secret $26 million arms sale to the government of Rwanda in 1990 when he was Egyptian Foreign Minister, the weapons stockpiled by the Hutu regime as part of the fairly public, long-term preparations for the subsequent genocide. He was serving as UN Secretary-General when the killings occurred 4 years later."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Genocide

STREET FAIR

Yesterday we visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  There's so much to see!

Today... Sights, sounds, and SMELLS of the Street Fair just outside our building's front door.  Virtually every weekend there are parts of NYC blocked off for Street Fairs.  Today is our day!

CENTRAL PARK

Zoo

Even without a single leaf on any of the trees, Central Park is still an alluring place to visit.  There is a great little zoo in Central Park.  There are several larger zoos in New York City like the one in the Bronx.  The zoo in Central Park is tucked away in the southeast corner of the park.

DOUBLE DECKER BUS

The granddaughters, Kate, and I rode a Double Decker Tour Bus today.  We had two separate guides; one was great and the other was okay.  If you get a good guide, there's so much interesting history that can be seen from the bus.

On the way to the subway I captured a few pictures of blossoming at Greeley Plaza.  It's coming into Spring.

We made it to the top of the bus.

At 12:59 PM it didn't feel like Spring.

BIRTHDAYS, RETIREMENT, GIRLS ON BROADWAY

The Godicis treated all, except Ted, to a wonderful dinner at Per Se.  It was a memorable evening.  Jere's and Bill's Birthdays and Carolyn's and Bill's Retirement.

Carolyn and I took the 3 granddaughters to a play in a children's theater at 76th & Broadway.  It was about a Tooth Fairy.  I felt comfortably at home. 

Following the performance we ate ice cream and let the girls blow off all the energy they could.  They then produced their own "performance" at 72nd & Broadway in a very small park in the median of Broadway.  Big fun!  I know it all must sound very strange, but at the moment it was magic.