Rich City, Poor City

In a span of 24 hours, I visited two museums that represent the abject poverty and opulent wealth of late 19th- and early 20th-century New York: The Lower East Side Tenement Museum and The Frick Collection.

You can only see the Tenement Museum by guided tour, and the tour I did was called "Getting By." We visited two apartments, one furnished as it was when a German-Jewish family lived there during the Panic of 1873 (which was described to be a lot like last October...) and the apartment of an Italian-Catholic family during the Depression of the 1930s. Both of these families lived in cramped quarters, but the Italian family had it a lot better than the German family had 60 years before. In 1873, the building on 97 Orchard Street had just 4 outhouses in the backyard, which were used by the residents of the 20 apartments. That's probably an average of 5 person per apartment...you do the math. Gross. No running water, and little air ventilation. This picture from the museum's website shows what their kitchen likely looked like. They would have to haul buckets of water up from the backyard (the water supply, by the way, was right next to the outhouses - not quite sanitary). The stove, which was cast iron, would heat up the whole apartment, which is great in the winter, but not so great in the summer. See any sanitary or efficient means of storing food? Nope. Not so much.



Around the same time that the 100 or so residents of 97 Orchard Street were using the same 4 outhouses on the Lower East Side, on 70th Street and 5th Avenue, wealthy industrialist and art collector Henry Clay Frick was living in the lap of luxury. According to Wikipedia, he was once known as "America's most hated man," and this past April, CNBC named him one of the "Worst American CEOs of All Time." Frick's mansion spans the entire block, and in the 16 galleries, houses works from Frick's personal collection, including works by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Duccio, El Greco, Titian, Turner, Monet, and Whistler...to name just a few. Frick got to wake up every morning and stroll into his outdoor courtyard (which is now covered), right in the middle of his mansion.


Visiting these two museums, in such quick succession, really made me think about the vast disparities in wealth that can be found on one small island. While poor immigrants were starving downtown, rich socialites were gorging themselves uptown. The Tenement Museum tour guide told us that Wall Street was wired for electricity in 1888, but the building on 97 Orchard Street didn't get electricity until 1924. Have things changed since then? Some have, some haven't...but hopefully we're moving in the right direction.

As a side note, at the Tenement Museum visitor's center, they show two short videos about immigrants and the museum. During the credits of one of them, in the special thanks section, "Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities" appeared on the screen, which I thought was quite ironic and funny. Several other people sitting in the audience snickered.

The High Line

Yesterday I visited The High Line, the newly opened park on the old elevated railroad on the west side of Manhattan. Right now it runs from about 13th Street to 20th Street, but will extend much further uptown.

The southern entrance to the High Line.

They incorporated vegetation - trees, plants, and flowers - with old train tracks and rails.

It's a great area, with benches and lawn chairs all along, and a view of the Hudson River. It also runs through buildings, and there are a few metal tables and chairs to sit on. It's a very interesting amalgamation of urban architecture and park greenery. Go take a stroll if you're in the area!

Museum Mile Festival, Vynl, and Jury Duty

Last night was NYC's Museum Mile Festival, and every museum along 5th Avenue between 81st and 105th streets was closed between 6pm and 9pm. The street was closed to cars, and there were street performers all along 5th Ave. A few of my friends and I went to see the "Frank Lloyd Wright: From Within Outward" exhibit at the Guggenheim. There was a long line to get in, but we only waited about 15 minutes because it moved so quickly. The exhibit was pretty interesting, and it was fun just being inside the museum for free! I hadn't been to the Guggenheim since a 9th grade school trip, so it was nice to be back and see the structure. We also walked through the 19th-century painting section, which I loved. As we were leaving, everyone was exiting the museum, since it was almost 9pm, and it was very bizarre to look across the circle at all of the people walking down the spiraling floors. Everyone was moving at the same pace, so it looked as if the building was moving and not the people. Very strange.

After the museum, we went to a restaurant called Vynl in Hell's Kitchen. The food wasn't anything special, but it was fun because the theme of the restaurant was vinyl records. The fronts of the menus were covers of all different record albums, and the bathrooms were each unisex private stalls themed with different artists, including Elvis, Cher, Dolly Parton, and Nelly. (I used the Dolly bathroom - it had a mosaic of Dolly on the wall and one of her songs was playing on a speaker just in that room.) There were also vinyl records on the walls of the restaurant, and hanging from the ceiling.

In other news, I had jury duty today. After so much anticipation, it was quicker and easier than I ever could have hoped. They didn't need to call any jurors at all, all day. We were let out a half hour early for lunch (and since the courts are only a 15 minute walk from my apartment, I was able to go home for a bit, which was nice) and then they let us out an hour and a half early in the afternoon. In the morning, we were told that we would AT LEAST have to come in tomorrow, even if no one was called today, but by the afternoon it had been such a slow day that they didn't even need us to come in tomorrow. Hooray! Now I'm off the hook for the next six years.

New Summer Header

Yesterday I uploaded a new picture for the header picture at the top of the page. I took it last week at Atlantic Beach in East Hampton. The day was pretty cloudy, so I took the liberty of doctoring it up a bit in iPhoto. Now it looks nice and sunny, and appropriate for summer!

Fresh-Baked Challah

This weekend I baked challah for the first time. I'll admit that I kind of cheated because I made the dough in a bread maker, so I didn't have to knead it, but I did braid it and bake it myself. It turned out pretty well; I followed the bread maker's recipe for challah, except I replaced the sugar with honey.

It was a huge loaf. You can't really tell scale from this picture, but that plate is the size of a dinner plate, not a dessert plate.


The Challah for Hunger chapter at Vassar always sells a "flavor of the week" challah in addition to traditional and chocolate chip, and one week they made chai challah. It was so amazing that I had to email them for the recipe. Next time I'm going to attempt to make chai challah, and maybe experiment with some other flavors as well.

Pineapple Banana Mint Smoothie

I made this smoothie for breakfast this morning. It was delicious! The mint leaves add a nice, refreshing taste. I might experiment with mint in other fruit smoothies as well. I pretty much followed this recipe from NYTimes.com but I used canned crushed pineapple instead of fresh, and non-fat plain yogurt instead of low-fat.

Yum!