Tag: manhattan

The Lincoln Center

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wp20160903_213912 wp20160903_2147261The Met’s Summer HD Festival of free outdoor opera screenings on Lincoln Center Plaza was still on. “The Merry Widow” was a “full house” screening that Saturday evening.

Later, seeking more information about the screenings, I read that people reserve the best seats by putting clothes, shopping bags or even papers with their names on early in the morning of the event, sometimes days in advance! They come, they grab and they go – only to appear again just before the screening to claim possession of their chosen seat. Meanwhile, people who arrive a – reasonable – couple of hours before the start have to seat wherever they can find a ”non-reserved” chair.

Complaints to the organizers have thus far been met with indifference and a generic response like ”seats are offered on the first-come first-served basis”. But shouldn’t there be a rule to define ”first-come” and narrow it down to – at least – a few hours ahead, on the same day of an event? Or, if the free screenings continue in the future, there’ll be more and more such ”reservations” each year.

September 3rd, 2016

The magnificent Chrysler lobby

The Humble Fabulist3 Comments

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How is it to work here every weekday? Can staff still pose in admiration at the elegant art deco murals, marquetry and brass details? Surely there comes a time when the excitement of the first encounter fades, wielding to a seen-it-all-before blasé spirit. When the eye looks but forgets to see. I’m glad I don’t work in the Chrysler Building. Wish I will never have enough of this magnificent lobby.

August 30th, 2016

PS: Surprisingly little information can be found on the internet about the artist of the mural that covers the entire ceiling and upper parts of some walls – quite disappointing given that, when created in 1930, it was considered the largest in the world:

Edward Trumbull, American (1884 – 1968)

Edward Trumbull was born in Michigan and raised in Connecticut. He attended the Art Students’ League of New York and studied in London under the noted muralist, Frank Brangwyn. Trumbull’s style as a muralist was traditional, and he was best known for his ease of bright and varied colors. A long time resident of Pittsburgh, Trumbull painted panels for the Heinz Administration Building in Pittsburgh and used “The Three Rivers” that converge at the city as the theme for the ceiling of the lobby of the Chrysler Building in New York. Two of his murals, located in the South Office building of the Pennsylvania Capitol Complex, are smaller versions of the murals he painted for buildings in Pittsburgh.

Update June 2021: more info can be found on this article by Bookworm History, published in April 2017.