Our plan for today had us visiting the New York Historical, but it didn’t open until 11am and we weren’t going to sit around doing nothing all morning, so we hopped on the subway and headed uptown to the Trinity Cemetery and Mausoleum at 155th and Broadway. We only saw the Easterly Division of the cemetery, but while we were there, we visited two mayors and one illustrator, as well as the monument to the Battle of Washington Heights which was fought on the cemetery grounds.
We wanted to visit the Church of the Intercession, which anchors the Easterly Division grounds, but it didn’t look open.
I would have liked to visit the Astors in the Westerly Division across Broadway, but it was already after 11, so we decided to let them wait and went to the New York Historical (formerly the “New-York Historical Society” until a recent rebranding). The only thing I knew I wanted to see there was the Robert Caro exhibit, but there was a lot more to see than that, beginning on the stairs leading up to the Caro exhibit on the second floor.
Before we got to the Caro exhibit, we got distracted by New York, New York: The Elie and Sarah Hirschfeld Collection of artwork featuring New York City itself. Here are a few samples.
The Caro exhibit (“Turn Every Page”: Inside the Robert A. Caro Archive) was smaller than I expected it to be, but I spent quite a while reading through the displays.
They had a few excerpts from “The Power Broker” in the display; I thought about buying a copy from the museum shop, but it’s far too heavy to haul back on this trip.
A docent joined us while we were looking at the museum’s collection of silver and told us some fascinating stories about the history of silver in America and, in particular, an ice cream dish which was part of a 1,250-piece dinner service commissioned from Tiffany & Co. by “silver king” John W. Mackay (1831-1902) for his wife, Marie Louise Hungerford Mackay (1843-1928). Irving Berlin and Mark Twain made guest appearances in the story, too. I didn’t take a picture of the dish, but it’s on the museum’s website:
The docent told us that we had to go see the Gallery of Tiffany Lamps – and he was right. It was beautiful.
The fourth floor had a large exhibit titled Objects Tell Stories, which deserved half a day by itself. Here’s one small sample from 9/11.
We finished our visit to the museum with a trip to the Oval Office and Hall of Presidents.
As we left the museum, Diane stopped for a photo with Lincoln.
We enjoy watching Only Murders in the Building, so we had to walk a few blocks to see the Anconia – well, the Belnord, which is where they shoot the exteriors for the show.
I wanted to go into the courtyard for better photos, but the doorman came out to send us away.
This evening, we took a Bowery Boys Ghost Tour in lower Manhattan. We’d been to many of the same places on Sunday, but the stories were new, and the guide was a blast.
The tour finished outside Blood Manor, a haunted house attraction…but our guide told us the real story of the place. Matthew Brady, the Civil War photographer, lived there both before and after the war – but he had to leave the place because he said the spirits of the slain soldiers he’d photographed on the battlefields were haunting him.
I’ll pass on visiting the inside of the place – the story outside was spooky enough!