Paying Our Respects

Jillian, Richard and I wanted to spend this final day in New York, paying our respects to some people and places before joining Tim to catch our 9 p.m. train back to D.C.   First, however, we had to jettison our luggage because no one wanted to carry bags around all day.  Luckily, we learned that we could store our belongings at Penn Station by showing our same-day Amtrak tickets, a valid ID, and paying a $5.00-per-bag fee. 

Dropping our bags at the station, we headed uptown to the Museum of Modern Art to pay our respects to Vincent van Gogh's "Starry Night."

"Starry Night" by Vincent Van Gogh

This painting is so evocative that surely everyone, upon first sight, feels an immediate connection to this masterpiece.  Memories of a night of spent looking at the stars must be held by almost every human being.  One can emotionally revive the wonder, security and serenity felt during a childhood stargazing experience when viewing this painting.  That's why it is astonishing to know that van Gogh painted this while he was a patient in the asylum of St. Remy, France, and furthermore, that he painted this from memory, rather than outdoors as he would have preferred.   

From 1881 to 1890, Vincent van Gogh frantically painted almost 900 works of art, but his work was too radically different to be commercially successful.  He sold only one painting during his life, a life tragically cut short at age 37 by a self-inflicted gunshot wound. 

I fell in love with this painting in high school, thanks to the popular song written by Don MacLean entitled "Vincent (Starry, Starry Night)," which was released in 1970.  This YouTube video features this song set to slide transitions of Van Gogh's paintings.  If you have time, turn up the sound and click Play.  I've added the lyrics below.

Vincent (Starry, Starry Night) by Don MacLean

Starry, starry night.
Paint your palette blue and grey,
Look out on a summer's day,
With eyes that know the darkness of in my soul.
Shadows on the hills,
Sketch the trees and the daffodils,
Catch the breeze and the winter chills,
In colors on the snowy linen land.

Now I understand what you tried to say to me,
How you suffered for your sanity,
How you tried to set them free.
They would not listen, they did not know how.
Perhaps they'll listen now.

Starry, starry night.
Flaming flowers that brightly blaze,
Swirling clouds in violet haze,
Reflect in Vincent's eyes of china blue.
Colors changing hue, morning field of amber grain,
Weathered faces lined in pain,
Are soothed beneath the artist's loving hand.

For they could not love you,
But still your love was true.
And when no hope was left in sight
On that starry, starry night,
You took your life, as lovers often do.
But I could have told you, Vincent,
This world was never meant for one
As beautiful as you.

Starry, starry night. 
Portraits hung in empty halls,
Frameless head on nameless walls,
With eyes that watch the world and can't forget.
Like the strangers that you've met,
The ragged men in the ragged clothes,
The silver thorn of bloody rose,
Lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow.

Now I think I know what you tried to say to me,
How you suffered for your sanity,
How you tried to set them free.
They would not listen, they're not listening still.
Perhaps they never will...

Grand Central Station

Due to the day's chilly rain, visitors had fled into the museum in search of a warm, dry spot.  It was like Grand Central Station in there!  That thought prompted us to quit the museum to trek over to the real Grand Central Station for a late lunch at its lower level food court. 

Can you find Richard and Jillian in the immensity of Grand Central Station?

No trip to this city could be considered complete for a librarian without a visit to the New York City Public Library.  After lunch, we walked over to NYPL's Main Branch at 5th Avenue between 40th and 42nd streets.  Currently on display there until March 2012 is the exhibit, "Celebrating 100 Years," which showcases 250 jaw-dropping items drawn from the library's collection, including--

1.  The first Gutenberg Bible acquired in the Americas,
2.  Sumerian cuniform tablets ca. 2300 BCE,
3.  One copy of the "Declaration of Independence" handwritten by Thomas Jefferson,
4.  Malcolm X's briefcase containing his Koran and one of his spiral notebook journals,
5.  Virginia Woolf's walking stick,
6.  Ludwig Beethoven's hand-written score of "Archduke," Trio No. 7 in B-flat major, Op. 97,"
7.  A.A. Milne's "Winnie the Pooh" stuffed bear,
8.  A first edition of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf,
9.  The final handwritten draft of George Washington's "Farewell Address," 
10.  A letter-opener owned by Charles Dickens,
11.  Dante's Divine Comedy, and
12.  Francis Scott Key's original score of "The Star-Spangled Banner." 

I could list all 250 items, but I'd hate to ruin your experience, should you be able to squeeze in a visit before this exhibit ends.  Truly this is an incredible selection of the world's literature!

Fortitude, NYPL's lion

Saying goodbye to the library's marble lions which NYC Mayor Fiorella LaGuardia renamed Patience and Fortitude for traits he believed New Yorkers would need to weather the economic depression of the 1930s, we continued to the final place we wished to honor.

National September 11 World Trade Center Memorial

The National September 11 World Trade Center Memorial is a sacred place.  The memorial's two reflecting pools sit within the footprints left from the World Trade Center's north and south towers.  The cascades pouring into these pools are the largest man-made waterfalls in North America.  Names of all 2,977 people who died in the collapse of the towers are engraved on the bronze panels surrounding the pools, along with the names of the six people who died in the World Trade Center bombing of February 1993.

Leonard W. Hatton Jr.

Leonard W. Hattan Jr. was one of the first responders to the scene on 9/11/2001.  He was also the only active-duty FBI agent to die in the destruction.  He was 45 years old.   His name is inscribed on Panel S-26 on the South Pool. 

John O'Neill had just retired as head of the FBI's counterterrorism division a month before the 9/11 terrorist attacks occurred.  He was a veteran FBI agent who led the bureau's investigation into the terrorist bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen a year earlier.  Upon his retirement from the FBI, he accepted the position of Chief of the World Trade Center's security.  He, too, died that day, assisting WTC occupants to safety. 

The Freedom Tower

May we never forget these lives that were sacrificed on that day!

The Freedom Tower rising beside the North Pool