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Exhibits: New York Historical Society
Jun. 7th, 2008 11:56 amBy a virtual accident (i.e., i was in the neighborhood and needed to kill some time), i found myself recently wandering through the halls of the New York Historical Society.
I initially went in to check out the current exhibit, Woven Splendor, a display of textiles and carpets and other items "from Timbuktu to Tibet"--essentially, a lot of Ottoman Empire/Southern Asian woven goods. The gallery itself and the pieces featured were lovely and facinating (particularly some really cool capes, bags, and saddle cloths), but my enjoyment of it was almost negated by the crass security staff they had in that area--one woman was talking to another guard in a normal tone of voice the entire time about mundane conversational stuff ("When i get home i'm gonna put on my shorts and flip-flops and i'm gonna pour me a beer and..." etc.), and the two male guards in the room were chewing gum and candies so vigorously it was distracting. I don't get that--i go to museums to view the exhibits, and if i'm commenting on them to someone, i do it sotto voce out of respect for the other viewers. For the guards to be so loud, ugh, irritating. Still, the textiles are quite impressive, if you dig that kind of thing.
The Allure of the East exhibit was also fascinating, my favorite parts being a couple of Moroccan-influenced Tiffany lamps and a whole mess of photographs of Victorian parlor decor and people in ball costumes that were stylistically part of the "orientalism" craze of the period. There was a picture of a woman in a bustle-gown "Cleopatra" costume that really has to be seen to be believed. Truly facinating! (I always like seeing "costumes" from other eras, how they blend their own silhouette and ideal with the character's.)
The most exciting part of the museum, though, was the 4th floor, the Henry Luce III Center for the Study of American Culture. (Security up there was awesome--quiet but present, helpful but unobtrusive.) If you recall my review of the Steamship Arabia Museum and how it was such an exciting slice of period mundania, this is like that but even more diverse in its range of artifacts. The collection is set up in what they call a "visible storage installation," which means they are in climate-controlled cases with glass walls so you can see not only what's laid out for display, but what's stored in the compartments beyond and behind the exhibition. So, say you are looking at their HUGE collection of Tiffany glass--you see the selection of lamps in the up-close cases, but you also see bunches more behind the cases in other storage areas! Really cool, especially if you are interested in artifact preservation, because you can see how things are stored, in what kinds of compartments and the like.
Some highlights in the Luce Center were the personal effects section--antique canes, eyeglasses and lorgnettes, jewelry, hairdressing tools and supplies, jewelry, corset busks, sewing tools, smoking ephemera, makeup cases, all kinds of cool stuff! There's a section of firefighting history stuff that was fairly emotionally affecting, particularly because it culminated in 9/11 artifacts like a K9 police dog's ID tag, a pair of shoes, a melted clock face, a battered helmet. Here these things were displayed in a case right next to a millstone from the year 1628 and a draft lottery wheel from the Civil War draft. There's a couch there to sit on, in front of that part, presumably because a lot of people are, like i was, taken aback at their response and need to sit and collect themselves.
There's a painting gallery in the Luce Center as well, which right now also houses an exhibit on the Cholera epidemic of 1832. The gallery features a lot of interesting portraiture from the 1700s to the present (always of interest to costume historians), as well as some cool street-scene landscapes. One painting of a street scene revealed a possible ancestor in its depicted signage: "Pollock's Fur Hat Manufactory" at 7 1/2 Bowery, 3rd floor--some distant relative perhaps who was making hats in the Bowery in 1838!
All in all, a cool museum to check out if you are a history buff, particularly NYC history, though maybe bring an iPod so you can drown out the jawing-and-chawing of the security guards if need be. It was $10 to get in, but through August you can show your admission receipt and get in free to the Museum of the City of New York! They have an exhibit on the history of theatre in NYC, so i'll definitely be taking advantage of that deal soon.
I initially went in to check out the current exhibit, Woven Splendor, a display of textiles and carpets and other items "from Timbuktu to Tibet"--essentially, a lot of Ottoman Empire/Southern Asian woven goods. The gallery itself and the pieces featured were lovely and facinating (particularly some really cool capes, bags, and saddle cloths), but my enjoyment of it was almost negated by the crass security staff they had in that area--one woman was talking to another guard in a normal tone of voice the entire time about mundane conversational stuff ("When i get home i'm gonna put on my shorts and flip-flops and i'm gonna pour me a beer and..." etc.), and the two male guards in the room were chewing gum and candies so vigorously it was distracting. I don't get that--i go to museums to view the exhibits, and if i'm commenting on them to someone, i do it sotto voce out of respect for the other viewers. For the guards to be so loud, ugh, irritating. Still, the textiles are quite impressive, if you dig that kind of thing.
The Allure of the East exhibit was also fascinating, my favorite parts being a couple of Moroccan-influenced Tiffany lamps and a whole mess of photographs of Victorian parlor decor and people in ball costumes that were stylistically part of the "orientalism" craze of the period. There was a picture of a woman in a bustle-gown "Cleopatra" costume that really has to be seen to be believed. Truly facinating! (I always like seeing "costumes" from other eras, how they blend their own silhouette and ideal with the character's.)
The most exciting part of the museum, though, was the 4th floor, the Henry Luce III Center for the Study of American Culture. (Security up there was awesome--quiet but present, helpful but unobtrusive.) If you recall my review of the Steamship Arabia Museum and how it was such an exciting slice of period mundania, this is like that but even more diverse in its range of artifacts. The collection is set up in what they call a "visible storage installation," which means they are in climate-controlled cases with glass walls so you can see not only what's laid out for display, but what's stored in the compartments beyond and behind the exhibition. So, say you are looking at their HUGE collection of Tiffany glass--you see the selection of lamps in the up-close cases, but you also see bunches more behind the cases in other storage areas! Really cool, especially if you are interested in artifact preservation, because you can see how things are stored, in what kinds of compartments and the like.
Some highlights in the Luce Center were the personal effects section--antique canes, eyeglasses and lorgnettes, jewelry, hairdressing tools and supplies, jewelry, corset busks, sewing tools, smoking ephemera, makeup cases, all kinds of cool stuff! There's a section of firefighting history stuff that was fairly emotionally affecting, particularly because it culminated in 9/11 artifacts like a K9 police dog's ID tag, a pair of shoes, a melted clock face, a battered helmet. Here these things were displayed in a case right next to a millstone from the year 1628 and a draft lottery wheel from the Civil War draft. There's a couch there to sit on, in front of that part, presumably because a lot of people are, like i was, taken aback at their response and need to sit and collect themselves.
There's a painting gallery in the Luce Center as well, which right now also houses an exhibit on the Cholera epidemic of 1832. The gallery features a lot of interesting portraiture from the 1700s to the present (always of interest to costume historians), as well as some cool street-scene landscapes. One painting of a street scene revealed a possible ancestor in its depicted signage: "Pollock's Fur Hat Manufactory" at 7 1/2 Bowery, 3rd floor--some distant relative perhaps who was making hats in the Bowery in 1838!
All in all, a cool museum to check out if you are a history buff, particularly NYC history, though maybe bring an iPod so you can drown out the jawing-and-chawing of the security guards if need be. It was $10 to get in, but through August you can show your admission receipt and get in free to the Museum of the City of New York! They have an exhibit on the history of theatre in NYC, so i'll definitely be taking advantage of that deal soon.
