Results tagged “morganlibrary”

The Chrysler Building. The Seagram Building. The Apple Store Soho? The Center for Architecture's executive director Rick Bell made a list of 10 great buildings to see in New York City (presumably for tourists) and spoke to the AP about it. The list spans two boroughs, a classic skyscraper, a beloved transportation hub, and retail stores, and some landmarks are deliberately left off (like the Empire State Building which everyone knows about):
• Conde Nast Building, for its "environmentally correct" design by Fox & Fowle.
• Brooklyn Museum, for the modern entry pavilion and plaza, designed by James Polshek, against its Beaux Arts facade; the AP writes the addition makes makes the museum "inviting and accessible, a suitable centerpiece for Brooklyn's burgeoning hipster art scene."
• Prada New York in Soho, designed by Rem Koolhaas, for the way it "displays the merchandise, it doesn't sell it."

The NY Sun takes a look at the impact of graphic design firm Pentagram on the city’s arts institutions. The article focuses mostly on partner Paula Scher, who has created identities for the Public Theater, the Metropolitan Opera, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Symphony Space, the High Line, the Asia Society and a host of others.

• Cabbies are worried about their safety after robberies on the Lower East Side
• The city's problem-laden high schools for pregnant girls are closing; check out this article about how one student was facing the difficulties of her school, which included teachers not showing up and student fights
• Culturegrrl speaks with William Griswold, the future head of the Morgan Library, who actually left the Morgan a few years ago, with stings at the Getty and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts
• Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village has become a symbol of the high cost of living in NYC and the place for people to join hands in protest
• Green thumbs in Red Hook and plans are not yet approved for Whole Foods in Gowanus
• The end is nigh: Donald Trump agrees with Rosie O'Donnell regarding Lizzy Hasselback
• A baby was found wandering around Staten Island; an elderly couple took care of the baby until the police arrived, and the baby has since been identified
• After their hostess kicked them out of her apartment, two people beat her up in Central Park
• When it smells like vomit but it's really just the crap rotting in a vacated apartment

- Enlarged windows and ADA-compliant entrance ramp at the West 77th St. entrance. The New-York Historical Society has evolved into a much more progressive institution than the stuffy, exclusive architecture of its 1908 building would suggest. Created by York and Sawyer to exude neoclassical pomp, the building "was designed as a private club that did not intend to embrace the public," said the architect Paul Spencer Byard in a November 1st NY Times interview. Byard's firm of Platt Byard Dovell White has designed the renovation just approved.

The Landmarks Preservation Commission yesterday stalled Aby Rosen and Norman Foster’s proposed glass tower above the 1949 Parke-Bernet building at 980 Madison Avenue. While the commission didn’t formally reject the plan, it did not approve the addition or support a zoning waiver, two requirements for the project to proceed. All but one commissioner said during the public meeting at the Surrogate’s Court building that they could not support the building because of its scale, massing, materials and location.

Julia Moskin sits in for Bruni again this week, gives two stars to the new dining room at the Morgan Library. It's eccentric, she says--open only during museum hours, which means that it only serves dinner on Friday nights, and even then only until 9pm. But "there's no institution that joins a menu and a museum as seamlessly."

After seeing Liao Yusheng's beautiful photograph of the Morgan Library's addition, we decided that we should head over to the museum soon. The Morgan has a collection of early books, historical manuscripts, and more. And one exhibit catches our eye: The Morgan has some of its "Masterworks" on display, and we're particularly interested in the literary and historical manuscripts:

Manuscript drafts that show works in progress include Oscar Wilde's play An Ideal Husband and Bob Dylan's lyrics for the song "It Ain't Me, Babe." Manuscripts that made their way to the printer include Edgar Allan Poe's "Tale of the Ragged Mountains," Jane Austen's Lady Susan, and Ezra Pound's Guido Cavalcanti, shown in corrected proof. Sketches and manuscripts of the beloved children's story about the elephant Babar illustrate the entire composition process from early drafts to finished product.

-- Jewish lifeguards are being discriminated against at Jones Beach. Opines Krucoff: "I suggest sending in the IDF to secure the beach."

We stopped by the reopening of the Morgan Library yesterday to check out the blockbuster Renzo Piano renovation. The new space looks great-- particularly the entrance on Madison Avenue (between 36th and 37th), and the towering central court, with its glass windows. The old buildings along 36th Street look pretty much the same, but a second story with galleries has been added above the west-facing one. If you go, be sure to go down to the basement level under the central room-- they've added an astoundingly large auditorium that has to be seen to be believed. One of the guards told us they had to blast solid bedrock out for weeks to create the space.