The New York Public Library - A Treasure To Discover

Luckily I had a half-hour free before meeting an old friend for lunch right around the block from the main branch of the New York Public Library, a massive building I used to frequent decades ago when Manhattan was my home. Behind the famous majestic lions, marble steps, and columned facade of "the Beaux-Arts landmark building on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street" there are always wonders to behold.  Now named the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building (thank you Mr Schwarzman for all you did to preserve and enrich the exterior of this magnificent place) inside I have always loved seeing what this building is besides books, books, and more books. 

Over Here  WWI and the Fight for the American Mind  is an exhibit that traces how the American People were "sold" on our involvement in the Great War. 

This small exhibit is set in a glorious room that my photos won't do justice to (no flash allowed) but I hope you'll get a sense of the intensity and interest of the display. Great graphics on a backdrop of marble and ornamented crown moldings...

Along with the beauty of the room, I loved the way the exhibit showed the progression of public sentiment through sheet music…beginning with the adamant reluctance to get involved with

to the slow and reluctant acknowledgement of the coming storm...

to George M. Cohan's rousing rallying cry (following the sinking of the Lusitania) with the most popular song of the Great World War...

and finally to the demand that people engage with the war effort and stand up for being AN AMERICAN!

Appropriately the exhibit gave a look at the effort of the public libraries to do their bit and the play on children as part both those to engage and those to protect...

(Below) This was an advertisement in 

the Ladies' Home Journal, October 1918.

As I left the exhibit…

I noticed the commemorative plaque honoring those from the library who fought (and died) in THE World War (because they truly thought there would only ever be one)

I looked up at the magnificent ceilings and down at the ornate doors and doorways,

...into the lovely book/giftshop to the treasures for adults and especially for children.

    

There I was, leaving the library...and just when I thought my library adventure had ended, as I walked down 41st Street toward my friend, all along the way, embedded in the sideway, were plaques celebrating books and words…

And there it was.  A message meant for me.  A kick to my writer's block.

I am trying to tell the truth about myself, but it is hard…so very hard.

Museum of Chinese in America

I was amazed at this little gem of a museum down on Centre Street in lower Manhattan devoted to the story of the Chinese in America.  From their website: 

Founded in 1980, the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) is dedicated to preserving and presenting the history, heritage, culture and diverse experiences of people of Chinese descent in the United States.  The greatly expanded MOCA at 215 Centre Street is a national home for the precious narratives of diverse Chinese American communities, and strives to be a model among interactive museums.

And interactive it is...originally I went to see a current exhibit Oil and Water: Reinterpreting Ink but was drawn into the permanent exhibit, With a Single Step: Stories in the Making of America.  From its opening panel with exquisitely poignant prose, one moves through hearing the stories, seeing the photos and examining the objects of the Chinese in America.

One of the chapters in this history is the Chinese laundry and to give us a sense of the labor involved, visitors are asked to lift an iron that was used (probably for 12-hr days) day in and day out by these laborers.  It weighed a ton!  Well, not a ton, but eight pounds, and I could not imagine I could wield that iron for more than sixty minutes without my arm falling out of its shoulder socket.

 

There was such design and beauty in the objects I sawfrom the everyday to the extraordinary and none more wonderful than the recreated store where you could see and smell the teas and canned goods available to Chinese customers.

Even this rolling ladder (from the Putnam Company) meant for the utilitarian purpose of reaching things on higher shelves, had lovely decorative metal caps on its wheels...

                       











I was amazed by this handmade infant's cap knitted in the 1930s ...that seemed to have a swastika over each ear!  I've since learned that this is the Buddhist/Hindu Manji representing harmony/love/ mercy/intelligence/strength/     and the Nazis appropriated this symbol but turned it on its side...

Pretty awful to have this contradiction.

The Chinese in America suffered terribly...

...until we switched our prejudice from the Chinese to the Japanese in World War II.

There were even magazine ads showing readers how to tell the Chinese 

from the Japanese.  

[I decided to spare everyone those images.]

Eventually I made my way to the other exhibit which I thoroughly enjoyed...

And because it was a Thursday when I visited this gem, here's what I paid...a fabulous bargain!

I say: Get yourself down to this designed-by-Maya Lin jewel of place and remember when Made in China meant fabulous, exotic and special.  

Museum of Chinese in America