Day 104…
Stores are reopening in New York.
More out of curiosity than from any real need for anything, I took a bike ride downtown and went to Macy’s.
Restaurants all along the way down Columbus Avenue are in the process of trying to set up outside dining areas. They have been given permission to expand out onto the sidewalks and even, in some places out onto the street.
For the last few years, the traffic in New York has been slowly and rather erratically redesigned. Bike lanes have been added as have left hand turning lanes. Some avenues have moved their parking spaces into the street, leaving the bike lane between the parked cars and the sidewalk. Now, some of those parking areas are being taken over by dining tables.
On, Restaurant Row, a stretch of 46th Street in the heart of the theatre district, some of those eating places have started to re-open as well. Some of them, like Joe Allen’s, are strongly linked to theatre performance schedules. They are great places to eat before a show and even better places to gather afterwards. Often, they are fully booked up at those times, but if you are willing to eat during show times, you can usually get a table there. Joe Allen’s did not seem to be setting up an outside area.
It will be interesting to see how all of these places fare without the Broadway shows. And without the tourists. The subways, while certainly cleaner these days, are very much being avoided. The few times I have been on them in the last few weeks, they’ve been largely empty. Will people from other areas of the city venture out of their immediate neighborhoods to eat?
It’s also very hot in New York this week. Last night it was 88 degrees (31/32C) and very humid. I doubt that anybody is going to want to sit outside until later in the evening when it gets somewhat cooler. Only one person was sitting outside at Don’t Tell Mama, a Restaurant Row piano bar.
As I made my way down to Macy’s, I went past the American Museum of Natural History.
One of the founders of the museum in 1869, not long after the end of the Civil War, was Teddy Roosevelt’s father, Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. Teddy Junior, the President, shot one of the elephants, himself, that now stands in the centerpiece of the Hall of African Mammals display.
In 1940, the city installed a sculpture of President Roosevelt in front of the museum. The sculpture, entitled “Equestrian Statue of Theodore Roosevelt” depicts the President on horseback flanked by a Native American in full regalia to his right and a bare-chested African American man to his left. The positions of the figures in the piece elevates the white President far above the other two men.
Roosevelt was a man of his time. He believed in the superiority of the white race. He believed that women had the responsibility to breed prolifically and those that didn’t were committing a crime against the nation. He was a big game hunter, reveled in war and was very much a nationalist.
Placing that statue in front of a museum devoted to Natural History sends out the message in 2020 that the two anonymous men flanking the President are more exhibits to be displayed in the museum than actual people. Yesterday, Mayor de Blasio announced that, at the request of the museum, the statue would be removed.
I took some pictures of the sculpture yesterday and I posted one of a closeup of the African American man’s face on Instagram. Someone that I don’t know personally, commented, “30 years ago people fought to get Robert Mapplethorpe into museums - in spite of the offense his work caused - it was said that art should be provocative and stir up emotion and discussion even anger, and today we are pulling down statues that do just those things.”
I’ve been thinking about that comment and I don’t think that I agree with it. I think that there is a difference between art and public statuary. Certainly, some statues in public spaces are art - abstract shapes and metaphoric figures. Statues like the one of Roosevelt, however, are more monuments to an individual than they are art. It’s significant, it seems to me, that the statue was put into place by the City, not by the Museum.
Public monuments erected by the government of either a city or a state are chosen because they reflect the people who live there. The governments are not inviting an artistic discussion, they are, instead, glorifying that person or event. Creating a monument to that person or event states that they embody some sort of ideal that is shared by the entire community.
Robert Mapplethorpe’s photographs were intended, by him on the other hand, to provoke discussion. We can choose to go into a museum and see his work or we can choose to not go in and thereby avoid it. We don’t have that choice with public monuments. We HAVE to look at those - they are usually placed at the most trafficked areas of the city.
Personally, I do everything I can when I am walking through Columbus Circle to not look at the name of the President’s hotel that stands there. I, very consciously, avert my eyes away from having to read his name. With some statues you can’t do that. The larger and more central the statue, the harder it is to avoid.
Andrew Jackson was the seventh President of the United States and a slave-owner. He owned over 500 slaves over the course of his life. He is responsible for the forced relocation of over 60,000 Native Americans. Their journey west is known as the Trail of Tears. At least 3,000 people lost their lives along that long, cruel march.
Jackson is a very divisive figure these days. Jackson’s portrait is on the US twenty-dollar bill. We can’t not look at it.
The Treasury Department announced that starting this year, to coincide with the centennial of the passing of the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote, that his portrait would finally be replaced by one of Harriet Tubman.
That plan has been scuttled. During the President’s campaign, he stated that her portrait should, instead, be placed on the almost never-used $2 bill.
Lafayette Square, opposite the White House, features a large public monument to Andrew Jackson. Yesterday, protesters attempted, unsuccessfully, to pull it down. The President has threatened anyone who defaces a public monument with ten years in a federal prison.
As I have said before, I don’t think that these statues should be destroyed, I just think that they should be placed somewhere where people can CHOOSE whether or not to look at them. Time changes how we feel about things. Opinions change.
The city should put up something in place of the Theodore Roosevelt sculpture that celebrates scientific thought and discovery. That would be more fitting for a museum devoted to our natural history.
I did get to Macy’s eventually. There are signs all over the place inside encouraging shoppers to wear masks and keep their distance from other shoppers. There is only one masked clerk at each cashier station and those stations have plexiglass sneeze guards installed.
Macy’s is usually one of the worst places ON THE PLANET to shop. Crowds of tourists and New Yorkers alike make it impossible to navigate through. Every single time I go in, I instantly regret it and leave. Yesterday, the store was actually manageable. There were some people shopping, but not many. I had no intention of buying anything but as an enticement, there are some very good deals to be had. I bought some polo shirts. I’ve been living in them these days and the ones I have are getting a bit worn.
I don’t know when the Museum of Natural History is going to reopen. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has said that they may reopen by August.
I’m ready to be challenged again.
not sure I am liking this “re-opening”
people look out of step to me...
and we vote today and someone jumped.
All in a day 💕