Manhattan 2018 - Day 1 - Morgan Library, Cafe China, The Nap

I have always liked the idea of taking a very short, impromptu trip to New York City.  We could fly in early one morning, drop our bags off at a hotel, wander around Manhattan for the day, have dinner, attend a show on Broadway, stay overnight, wander around some more the next day and take a late flight home.  For such a short trip, our carry-on bags would be so small that they could go under our seats, so for once, we would not need to worry about trying to get on the plane early in order to ensure there was still room in the overhead compartment over us.  Also since we have been to New York multiple times and know the area very well, it would not take long to plan an itinerary to fill the brief visit.

We were finally compelled to act on this idea when we realized that a play called "The Nap" which we had been reading reviews about in the New York Times would be closing in just over a week.  We made a snap decision to go and less than 7 days later, we had a hotel booked, plane tickets purchased and our short trip planned.  For me, planning a trip is half of the fun, so I will never go on vacation with no itinerary in mind, but usually the planning happens months in advance so this was a different experience for me.

We decided to fly on Porter Airlines from Billy Bishop Island Airport in Toronto to the Newark Airport, thus skipping the zoo-like environments at Pearson and Laguardia.  Getting to Billy Bishop involved a short subway ride and a free shuttle bus while a New Jersey Transit train took us directly from the Newark Airport to Penn Station, so the transportation was easy and relatively inexpensive.  It was moving to see the beautiful bronze sculpture of WWI flying aces Billy Bishop and William Barker meeting for the first time.  We almost arrived to "cookie-gate" when news broke that week that the Billy Bishop Airport was cutting back on its touted offering of free newspapers, snacks, coffee and their renowned shortbread cookies that had previously differentiated it from other airports.  The Toronto Twittersphere was in an uproar in particular about the loss of the cookies which was reported in the early morning "What's Trending" section on radio station 104.5 CHUM FM.  By the next hour, part of the report was retracted and controversy mildly averted when it was clarified that there still would be free cookies and bottled water, although none of the other perks.

It was too bad that the closing date of the play that we wanted to see resulted in our arrival in New York in early November, weeks before the official start of the “Christmas Decoration Season” which we had so much fun experiencing on a previous trip.  Usually American Thanksgiving acts as the demarcation point after which it is open season on Christmas, for which downtown Manhattan goes all out to celebrate, including the raising of the giant tree at Rockefeller Centre.  So imagine our surprise when we arrived at Penn Station and walked along 34th Avenue towards our hotel.  Some of the stores including Macy’s, Old Navy, Louis Vuitton and Coach were already decked out for the Yuletide season and some of the streets already boasted festive decorations.  Back in Canada, we think it is shameful when stores bring out the Christmas decorations prior to Remembrance Day, or some times even before Halloween!  I thought the same sentiments held true for American Thanksgiving, but I guess the lure of early sales trumps tradition.

Although we had less than a week to plan this trip to New York, we still quickly and easily came up with a long list of things to do and places to see and had to cull and prioritize.  In fact, despite my initial wish to fly in and out with just one overnight stay, it soon became clear that we needed a second night.  In addition to the play, we wanted to tour the Morgan Library where an exhibit for the 200th anniversary of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was on display.  We also wanted to check out some art galleries near Central Park and in Chelsea and since we were staying a second night, we might as well go see another play.  Using Booking.Com, I searched for accommodations that would be a short walk from Penn Station and within reasonable walking distance to the other areas that we wanted to visit over our 2.5 days stay.   I like this website because it provides you a map listing all the available hotels and apartments in a particular area and allows you to hover over each one for easy comparison of price.  I also like it because Booking.com often lets you book accommodations far into the future while providing free cancellation up to a few days before the booking date, abet at a slightly higher rental rate.  Since this trip was so last minute, we did not need the cancellation option and were able to choose the slightly lower no-cancellation price.

We settled on the Iberostar 70 Hotel on Park Avenue and 38th Street which met all of our needs location-wise and while it was by no means inexpensive (we were on Park Avenue after all!), it was the most affordable rate in the area.  Our 8am flight from Toronto landed at 9:30am which brought us to our hotel around 10:30.  The plan was to store our bags with the front desk and spend the day at the Morgan Library (just a few blocks away) to await our check-in time.  To our delight, we found out that our room was actually ready so we were able to freshen up and drop off our bags and coats, since it was quite warm on our first day in New York.

The Morgan Library and Museum is a museum and research library that houses the private collection of books, manuscripts artwork and historic artifacts of banker John Pierpoint Morgan Sr. (1837-1913), who designated in his will that his collection be made available to the public.  Today, the complex is comprised of the amalgamation of several buildings including the Classical Revival-styled “McKim Building” (1903), built specifically to house  J.P.Morgan’s library, and “The Annex” (1928) which was built as more exhibition space on the grounds of Morgan’s former residence.   Finally a Brownstone house that was used as residence by J.P. Morgan Jr. until 1943 was purchased in 1988.  The gift shop and dining areas can now be found in this space.  In 2006, a new modernist entrance, lobby and Gilbert Court were added to integrate the three historic structures.  On our previous trips to Manhattan, we always wanted to visit the Morgan Library to see J.P.Morgan’s collection but did not have the time to do it justice and were also not that interested in the special exhibits.  Given that the admission is not insignificant at $20 (including a free audio guide and guided tours), we needed to make sure our visit would be worthwhile.  This time, we were excited that the featured exhibition was on the 200th anniversary of Mary Shelley’s classic novel Frankenstein, and allocated most of the day to spend at the Morgan.  

Starting in the JP Morgan Chase Lobby, we read about the foundation of the institution by J.P.Morgan Jr. as a tribute to his father and inspected the brass bell that used to reside on the Corsair, one of J.P.Morgan Sr’s yachts.  The bell is rung each evening to signal the closing of the museum.  Positioned in cases along the long lobby were selected treasures from Morgan’s Medieval Treasury including the gilded, bejeweled Byzantine Stavelot Triptych (1156-1158) from Belgium that narrates the “Legend of the True Cross”, the Parisian portable shrine of Thomas Basin d (1320-40) with a statue of the Virgin Mary and depictions of the twelve apostles and the Last Judgement, and the silver gilt and enameled Italian chalice of St. Michael (1320).  There was also a beautiful porcelain bottle vase (18th Century) from the Qing Dynasty made with high-fired ox-blood red glaze, which is one of over 1800 pieces of Chinese porcelain that Morgan Sr. amassed during his lifetime.

At the back of the lobby, a set of steps lead to the McKim Building which houses Morgan’s private library.  The interior of this building consists of a vaulted foyer rotunda leading to the entrances of three rooms—the main library, Morgan’s private study and an office for his librarian Belle da Costa Green.  Designed by Harry Siddons Mowbray, the rotunda is magnificent, with marble surfaces and columns, mosaic panels, a blue and white stucco ceiling decorated with images of Roman Gods, and lunettes over each entrance featuring paintings representing Antiquity, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.  Mowbray was inspired by works by Renaissance artists including Raphael and Pinturicchio. I especially liked the olive green marble columns with white and grey streaks that flanked the opening to each room.

Several display cases situated in the Rotunda contained artifacts related to the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of World War I.  Included was the iconic “I Want You For U.S.Army” recruitment poster depicting Uncle Sam pointing outwards, and the song sheets for tunes meant to inspire patriotism and encourage recruitment, such as Irving Berlin’s “For Your Country And My Country” and “God Bless America” as well as George Cohan’s “Over There”.  Berlin also wrote the song “Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning” as a complaint about army regulations, and “Goodbye France” to lament leaving Gay Paree after the war.

The first room that we entered was the Librarian’s Office, which has since been turned into an Antiquities Room, featuring Egyptian, Greek and Roman sculptures, early Medieval accessories and jewelry including belt buckles, pins and earrings and 11th Century bejeweled book bindings.  A large portion of the display cases focused on the collection of tiny ancient Mesopotamian cylinder seals that are delicately carved to create intricate scenes of flora, fauna and religious imagery.  To illustrate the pictorial symbols formed, the seals are displayed by rolling them over grey plasticine, as well as with photographic enlargements that highlight the details.  Above the ground-level display cases, a second level of book shelves lined the upper walls but there was no visible sign of how to access this level from within the room.  There were no stairs or ladders in sight.  As it turns out, there is a hidden staircase just outside the room that leads up to the bookcases from the back.  We would see something similar in the main library.

Next we entered the breathtaking Main Library, which is the largest and most opulently decorated of the three rooms, acting as a treasury for J.P. Morgan Sr.’s collection of rare books and manuscripts.  The 30-foot-high walls feature three levels of inlaid walnut and bronze bookshelves but again there were no stairs or ladders in sight and this time, also no hidden stairwell just outside. For this room, the hidden stairwells were even more cleverly concealed behind two special bookcases located on either side of the entrance.  Each “bookcase” doubles as a swinging door that has a small curved handle shaped almost like a fish attached to it, opening up to reveal the staircases leading to the second and third floor balconies.  The 16th Century tapestry over the Renaissance-styled marble mantelpiece is called “The Triumph of Avarice”, depicting one of the seven deadly sins, as personified by the mythological King Midas.  Paintings in lunettes (similar to the ones in the Rotunda) depict representations of great men of art and science such as Botticelli, Michelangelo, Galileo, Socrates and Christopher Columbus interspersed with their muses, while signs of the zodiac are depicted in hexagons along the ceiling.

Glass displays in the main library contain a rotating subset of highlights from the collection including one of three copies of the Gutenberg Bible (1455) purchased by Morgan.  This is quite impressive considering that only 50 copies in the world survive and the Morgan is the only institution to own 3 of them.  A colourfully illustrated manuscript of Norman law depicts scenes of beheadings and hangings (ca 1460).  A letter from Mark Twain to his daughter Clara (ca 1905) is signed with his “ghost autograph”, created by writing his name in ink along the crease of a folded piece of paper and pressing it to allow the ink to blot.  Several examples of gorgeous book bindings by French binder Pierre-Lucien Martin use glazed coloured paper inlays applied to leather covers to generate Art Deco styled geometric designs.  The only known copy of a misogynistic book called “Anatomy of a Woman’s Tongue” (1658) depicts the tongue used as medicine, poison, a serpent, fire and thunder.  The text includes short poems about shrewish, nagging wives and advises newlywed men on how to handle their spouses.  A book of musical compositions by noted jazz pianist Henry Crowder (ca 1930) includes poems by Samuel Beckett and others, as well as a cover illustration by Surrealist photographer Man Ray.

Morgan’s private study best reflects his personal tastes in décor and artwork, which was mostly Italian.  The walls are covered with red silk damask wallpaper that the bears the coat of arms of the Chigi family from 13th Century Italy. The antique wooden ceiling was purchased from Florence and customized to fit the room.  The pair of stained-glass windows date from between the 15th-17th Centuries and were once memorial windows from monasteries in Switzerland.  The furniture in the room, including Morgan’s desk, chairs and lounger were custom designed in the style of the Renaissance.  At the back of the study is a heavy, solid steel door with a combination lock leading to a vault where Morgan’s manuscript collection used to be stored.  Morgan spent much time in his study, meeting with art dealers, scholars, friends and business associates.  During the Financial Crisis of 1907 when both the banks and the stock market faced liquidity issues and the market fell 50% from its year beginning level, Morgan summoned the CEOs of all the major banks and trust companies into his study and refused to let them out until they hashed out a deal to pump money into the system, thus preventing a total collapse of the banking system.  Morgan pledged large sums of his own money for the cause.

After thoroughly immersing ourselves in the gorgeous rooms of  J.P.Morgan Sr’s private library, we were ready to tour the main exhibit called “It’s Alive!  Frankenstein at 200” marking the 200th anniversary since Mary Shelley (nee Godwin) first published “Frankenstein – The Modern Prometheus”.  The now iconic story tells the tale of a young scientist who creates a hideous but intelligently sapient creature and then rejects it because of its horrific appearance.  The novel was first published anonymously in 1818, since the thought of a woman writing such a dark, Gothic tale was untenable in those times.  Her name was included in the second printing in 1823 but even when she wrote subsequent novels including The Last Man (1826) and Perkin Warbeck (1830), she was identified on these books as “By The Author of Frankenstein”.   The very comprehensive exhibition was split into two large rooms.  The first room provided background about Mary Shelley, her childhood and background, her marriage to the poet Percy Shelley, and the influences that led her to write her masterpiece.  The second room dealt with all the adaptations in various forms and mediums that were influenced by her novel.

Included in the first room was a oil on canvas portrait of Mary Shelley, painted by Irish artist Richard Rothwell in 1931.  Coincidentally we had seen this exact portrait earlier in the year during our visit to the National Portrait Gallery in London, which loaned this work to the Morgan for this exhibition.  There were also multiple first editions of Frankenstein along with an anointed version where Shelly made notes of revision for a second publishing, a few pages of written manuscript, and copies of her subsequent novels.  A portrait of Percy Shelley as a boy along with a poem about a hungry cat that he wrote when he was eleven, gave insight into Percy’s youth.  Also showing early promise, at age 10, Mary Godwin wrote a prose paraphrase of a comic song called Mounseer Nongtonpaw that her father’s publishing firm was producing.

There were multiple examples of how the popularity of the Gothic style in British culture during Mary’s childhood influenced her writing of Frankenstein. Ghosts and other supernatural entities, graveyards, mysterious strangers, lost wills, hidden passages, secret warnings, dark and stormy nights and creepy mansions were all prevalent themes in books, paintings and other art forms.  This point was brilliantly made by the tour guide that was leading us through the exhibit.  Stopping in front of Henry Fuseli’s painting “The Nightmare” (1781), a work that Mary was quite familiar with, the tour guide started to read a passage from Frankenstein describing the scene of the monster’s encounter with Victor Frankenstein’s newly wedded wife.  As we listened to the words, it was amazing how closely they mirrored the images in the painting that we were standing in front of.  Fuseli’s “Three Witches” (1783) depicting Shakespeare’s mysterious characters from Macbeth was also on display, as well as a spoof by political caricaturist James Gillray (1791) that re-imagines the three “Weird Sisters” as the most powerful politicians of the time—William Pitt, Lord Thurlow and Lord Dundas, with Queen Charlotte depicted as the moon facing left while her husband, the mad King George III is the personification of darkness, facing right.  John Hamilton Mortimer’s ink drawing “Death on a Pale Horse” (1775) and Henry Pierce Bone’s watercolour “Incantation Scene” (undated) are further examples of Gothic art that may have influenced Shelley.  In the latter painting, two women have invoked a spell to raise the ghost of a knight draped in shrouds.

The exhibition included examples of scientific discoveries made and medical practices followed during Mary Shelley’s lifetime that influenced not only the plot of her Frankenstein novel, but also its many adaptations.  Hogarth’s drawing “The Reward of Cruelty” (1751) depicts a group of anatomists dissecting a man whose extracted intestines are being devoured by a hungry dog.  William Austin’s “Anatomist Overtaken By The Watch” (1773) is a caricature of a scene where a surgeon and his assistant are caught by a watchman while trying to steal a corpse from a graveyard for their medical experiments.  A surgical kit (ca.1790) containing drills, tourniquets, a saw, scissors, trepines for cutting into the skull and other cutting implements provided a physical example of the tools that Victor Frankenstein might have used.  Although not mentioned in the book, the idea that the creature was animated using electricity prevailed through many film adaptations.  No doubt these ideas were spurred on by the advent of early batteries like the Voltaic Pile (1805) invented by Alessandro Volta and illustrations of experiments involving electricity and corpses including ones performed by Giovanni Aldini who electrified the corpse of a murderer.  Other items on display included the “Pike Induction Coil with Leads” (1848) used for electric therapy and a “Vacuum Pump With Bell Jar” that extracts air from a container to create a vacuum.

Frankenstein was such a great success that it has been endlessly adapted in many formats ever since.  This was the focus of the second room in the exhibition.  The earliest stage adaptation was Richard Brinsley Peake’s three-act play “Presumption! Or, The Fate of Frankenstein” (1823), which introduced the character of Victor Frankenstein’s assistant Fritz, who eventually became known as “Igor” in future renditions.  Portrayed by actor T.P.Cooke who was over 6 ft tall, the creature was listed merely as “-------“ in the playbill and was depicted as a mute, blue-skinned hobgoblin.  When the play traveled to Paris in 1826 under the name “Le Monstre et le Magicien”, the monster first took on its green skin-tone, which continued to be used in later film versions.  In a remounting of the French play in 1861, folded souvenir fans were handed out to the ladies so they could fan themselves when overcome by fright or heat.  The French version explicitly enacted the scene where the monster kills a child while the original British play implied this action which happens off stage.  Other adaptations on display included a wood engraving of the Frankenstein family tomb by Barry Moser and paperback versions of the story with illustrations highlighting the damsel in distress.  There were also various pulp fiction and comic book versions.

By the time film adaptations came into existence, it was clear that “Frankenstein” had come to be known and accepted as the name of the monster (as opposed to the creator of the monster), who in the book was never named but referred to only as “creature”, “monster”, “demon”, “wretch”, “fiend” or “it”.  The first Frankenstein movie was filmed in 1910 and used a papier-mâché version of the creature, which was set on fire.  When the film was run backwards, it was made to appear as if the monster rose from the flames.  When Boris Karloff starred as the monster in director James Whale’s 1931 version of Frankenstein and then again in the 1935 sequel Bride of Frankenstein with  Elsa Lanchester in the titular role, Karloff’s makeup and movements resulted in what is now the iconic look for the modern day Frankenstein (the monster, not the scientist).  The same can be said about the bride’s conical hairstyle which might have inspired the similarly shaped hair of Marge on the animated show “The Simpsons”.   A series of movie posters illustrate the slew of schlocky adaptations and mashups inspired by the Frankenstein character.  These include Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man (1943), Frankenstein Conquers The World (1966, where he fights the Japanese nuclear monster Baragon, a 4-legged horned dinosaur), I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (1957), and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (as well as Dracula and the Wolfman, 1948).  There was even a 3-D X-rated version often called “Andy Warhol’s Flesh For Frankenstein”, even though Warhol really didn’t have much if anything to do with the film.

J.P.Morgan’s private library and the extensive Frankenstein exhibition took so long to tour that we were tired and gave the remaining smaller exhibits just a quick cursory visit.  A few works by Italian mannerist painter Pontormo (1494-1557) were on display in a small room called “The Thaw Gallery”.   Upstairs in the larger Engelhard Gallery was an exhibition on the etchings of Tintoretto’s interpretations of Venice.  Had I a bit more energy, I might have taken a closer look at these.  Rich was so tired, he did not even make the trip up the stairs, waiting for me in a comfy armchair while I ran up for a quick peek.  We ended our visit with a stop in the gift shop where we saw many examples of the now expected representations of Frankenstein (the monster) and his bride.  The item that caught my fancy was a beautifully illustrated picture book cheekily titled “When Pigasso met Mootisse”, spoofing the works of Picasso and Matisse.  I bought this as a souvenir of our trip.   The Morgan library turned out to be such a hidden gem that is not normally on the radar of the tourist visiting New York City.  However with its steep admission price, now that we’ve seen the most impressive part, which is Morgan’s private library, I’m not sure there would be any new special exhibition that would be worth paying this fee again.  For anyone who has never been here, it is definitely worth a visit.

During each of the two evenings of our short 2.5 day stay in Manhattan, we planned to watch plays on Broadway, so we needed to have early and relatively quick dinners either near our hotel (so that we could rest before the trek to the shows) or near the theatres.  Ever since our first trip to Paris in 2004 when we tried to eat dim sum and it turned out to be awful, I have placed a moratorium on eating Chinese food in countries or locales that are not known for it, especially since we have such excellent options for Chinese food back home in Toronto.  Knowing this, Rich often makes a joke about eating at a Chinese restaurant again during our travels.  So when he first mentioned Café China which was located just a few blocks from our hotel, I brushed off the suggestion without a second thought.  But then he told me that the establishment had been awarded a Michelin 1-Star rating and this caught my attention, so we decided to try it.  Café China is a quaint Sichuan restaurant decorated to resemble 1930s Shanghai with its hardwood floors, avocado green walls covered with images of young starlets from that era, bamboo planters, wood paneling and tables, bright red chairs and white vertical blinds covering a large wood and marble bar.

We ordered a pot of goji berry and chrysanthemum tea sweetened with crystal sugar and three entrees, making sure to stay away from the spiciest dishes that were denoted by 3 peppers.  We picked the sweet and sour baby pork ribs with seasonal Chinese vegetables, the spicy cumin lamb with chili pepper, onion and cilantro, and finally the “Fish Blossom” which was a whole crispy, boneless tilapia that was battered, deep-fried and covered with a home-made sweet and sour sauce.  The head and tail of the fish were positioned in such a way that it seemed like the tilapia was still intact. Each entrée came with a “free bowl of rice”, so we ended up with more rice than we could manage.  The ambience of the restaurant was fun and the food was really good compared to other Chinese restaurants that we had dined at, but we were not sure that it warranted a Michelin star.  If this is what it takes for the star, then there are many restaurants in Toronto that deserve at least one or more stars as well.  Too bad Michelin does not come to Canada to rate our restaurants.

After dinner, we headed towards the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre on 47th Street to buy tickets for that evening’s showing of the British snooker comedy “The Nap”.  We had read about this show in the New York Times and were intrigued by the prospect of an actual snooker match being played on stage while the audience watched.  I wanted to buy the tickets at the box office as opposed to online from home because it would save us quite a bit of money.  First of all, we could pay with U.S. cash which we had on hand from the U.S. dividends paid from our stocks so we would save the currency conversion.  Also, we would not have to pay the hefty service charges imposed by the online ticket sellers.  By trying to purchase tickets the same day of the show, we ran the risk that there would be none left.  So for the seven days leading up to our flight to New York, I checked the ticket availability daily, ready to pull the trigger and make a purchase if it seemed like the seats were starting to sell out.  Luckily they did not, although maybe that should have been a warning to us about the popularity of this show.

We ended up with seats in the balcony, which turned out to be the perfect place from which to watch this show, since we could see the entire snooker table and did not need to rely on the screen that was broadcasting the match play to the people in the orchestra.  In this context, the term "nap" is not short slumber, but rather, a snooker term referring to the direction of fibres on the green pool table cloth, which can affect the path of the cue ball.  The show is a screwball comedy about a blue-collared snooker prodigy from Sheffield, England named Dylan who is pressured by his mobster-like sponsor and grifter mother to throw a match so that they can bet against him.  Wacky characters abound, romance and hijinx ensue but some of the jokes are lost or misunderstood due to the extremely heavy Yorkshire accents of the characters.  Dylan plays several matches against different opponents who are all portrayed by a real-life snooker professional, whose job is clearly to set up the balls in a manner so that our hero can easily make his shots.  But in a live match situation, anything can happen on any night including either player missing their scripted shot. The witty announcer calling the game needs to be ready to adlib and invoke an alternate ending should something go awry.  I thought that the announcer was one of the funniest parts of the show with his hushed tones and condescending analogies to describe anyone who might not understand or appreciate the sport (.. “unless you had been living in Antarctica without Internet, you would know that … “).  I enjoyed this silly show with its unique gimmick of playing snooker live on stage, but would have appreciated it so much more if I could clearly understand more of what was being spoken.  I think I missed a bunch of the jokes due to the accents and the lingo used.

We packed quite of bit of activity into our first day in New York and felt fortunate that we were only staying for another 1.5 days since I don’t think we could keep up the pace for much longer than that.