New York, New York… is always worth a trip

and even a 4 days visit only is just great – and why not get away from New York City
for one day if you have the time and already know the most popular sights to visit
(the Libeskind Tower we saw for the first time)? Eating out is always an option in the city –
we did it in Chelsea and Brooklyn. And of course walked along the new prolongation of the
High Line up north (ignoring a bit the hasty crowd nearly running up and down the walkway).
After having visited a fabolous Robert Ryman show at Dia:Chelsea we spontaneously decided:
“Let’s make a ‘Sunday Art Tour’ with a special MTA ticket, the entrance fee for visiting Dia:Beacon included.”

We did it (better: Thomas and Almut, I *sigh* had to stay at home as for this kind of short trip the efforts would have been enormous to travel with them you know… would have been
an airport quarantine visit only…). Not to forget: THE reason we had been in New York
has been a Saturday housewarming party (‘awesome’, our hosts would say)…
And as we managed not to get drunk we could carry out our plan for Sunday.

Started the trip with the MTA Hudson Line at Grand Central on Sunday morning
(well, ‘morning’, about 10 a.m. …). The Station itself wasn’t that crowded as during
the normal working hours so we easily could get the tickets, had enough time to stroll around
to get us something to eat and drink.
Ah, and the Great Hall – we know many movies where the Great Hall
is part of the scenery, do you?

The clock, the ceiling, the bar on the mezzanine, etc., we knew already,
but for the very first time we stepped onto one of the over 100 platforms –
to get a train called ‘Yankee Doodle’.
Very impressing, indeed, to enter the platform from the Great Hall…

 The first part of the trip, right until the first stop on Harlem 125th Str., we were travelling underground like in a tube. From Harlem, crossing the Harlem River, the train took us through the western part of the Bronx, right up along the Hudson River. And in fact, the Hudson is nearly always on view (if you are lucky to sit on the left side!);
and many more interesting sites: old and new industry buildings, stadiums, bridges, bridges, bridges…,
hills, jungle like nature sceneries and canyon cliffs, an old toll station, an art park, harbors –
even Westpoint is on view (on the western bank of the Hudson, opposite to Garrison).
At first we did not recognize it – it is huge, connected to an old fort and looks like a city itself… so close to NYC.
Some of the stations (on Sunday we passed several, the train only stopped at some selected stations) still have Indian names – like Manitou for example.
About one hour later we reached our destination, short up hill walk – and we stood right
in front of the ‘temple of art’ as a good NY friend told us Dia:Beacon is for her.
Having spent hours in the halls with fabolous art pieces, arranged and installed in a really
great manner – there is nothing to add to this view.

My (Almut’s) personal favorites? The Robert Irwin work that seemed to me like a
‘White Kasbah’,
the strong Blinky Palermo paintings ‘Tageszeiten’ and – although I saw much of the neon works of Dan Flavin lately and a lot of them at Dia:Beacon that day – the ladder/ barrier like piece
right under and along the windows looking to the east.

Leaving this great place of art (kind of an art satellite) we headed to the city center
(as Germans, of course afoot) and had a short stop at a nice café before the train took us back
to New York Grand Central – where we found the Oyster Bar closed (on Sundays).
Did not matter – we entered another great place to finish our perfect day… with oysters too.