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.