Manhattan Adventures with Linda Part 2 Museums

May 19, 2019. 6:30 am

Dear Family and Friends,

Early Sunday morning and I have a cup of coffee and time to write again. This journal will be about our museum experience. We have been to three in our four days in Manhattan.

Friday morning we took the bus and subway to 190th Street to the MET Cloisters. At the time we didn’t know that this was the beginning of our two day flower adventure. This began in Fort Tyron Park in our walk to the Cloisters.

Spring is in bloom and the master gardeners for the park system create such beauty! On arriving at the Cloisters we discovered that at 1:00 one of the master gardeners for the Cloisters would be giving a lecture on medieval gardens. There are three medieval gardens at the Cloisters. As you can see from the photo above, the weather was overcast and by 1:00 is was raining. This just meant that she started inside with how gardeners are able to document medieval gardens through studying the 13th century tapestries.

In about 20 minutes the rain stopped and we moved outside.

Above is Solomon’s Seal , a willow cage that has sprouted, hops which will vine over ropes to create a summer shelter and the Romantic Garden in the main cloister.

Saturday was our day for the Metropolitan Museum of Art on 5th Avenue and we found more flowers. In the Asian Exhibit they were having a flower arrangement display by local artists. Most of the exhibit included the orchids in their arrangement,

We spent most of the day at the Metropolitan. Our original plan was to see sections that would prepare us for our Holy Land trip to Israel on Tuesday. We visited the ancient near eastern sections which included Babylon, Assyria, Egypt, and Israel.

The above images include a section of the outside wall from the Ishtar Gate of Nebuchadnezzar (575 BCE), the golden cup of Darius I (Nehemiah was his cupbearer), a image of Darius I, Ossuary (resting house for the bones of the dead) from Israel (4th Century BCE) and the the winged bull and lion which stood as guardians at the Assyrian Palace Court from Nimrud (883 BCE).

Our last museum was the JP Morgan Library and Museum. This was an evening tour in between plays. Morgan was a collector of fabulous artifacts including original musical works by Bach, Beethoven, etc, Gutenberg Bibles (3), the complete works of Austin, Byron, Burns, etc all or most first editions. At the museum they have space for special exhibits. This trip we were saw the exhibit of Mesopotamian seals and a photography exhibit. In the past I’ve seen exhibits on Martin Luther and Emily Dickinson.

Above includes Martin Luther and wife from the West Room Vault (two stories..there is another vault in the house), books from the library, a photograph by Lewis Rutherford from March 4, 1865 (correct date as he invented a telescope that could use the new advances in early photography to photograph the moon and planets…WOW!), a sculpture of Christ as a young boy, and Mesopotamia seals *+ Not in order as I changed the picture, Sorry!

It is now 8:04 and I need to get ready for Church. Why has this taken so long you ask…I just met a new ASU group of faculty and graduate nursing students who are involved in a service learning- study away experience. Getting to know the students from Applied Design and Nursing is super… ASU Loft is a wonderful place!

Until I find time to write again…

Ellen with the approval of Linda