NYC: Savage and Beautiful

Dress, Sarabande, exhibited at Met

Luckily we were able to plan our holiday in conjunction with our friends C & A whose sons are J's very good friends. We raced through breakfast to meet near Central Park ...

We had both wanted to see "Savage Beauty", the multi-media Alexander McQueen exhibit, at the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art at 1000 Fifth Avenue - a quick cab up to the park and we were there just before 11 am as we had been advised to go early. The excitement this exhibit seems to elicit boded well. It was as lovely, as exquisite, as my friends who had seen the exhibit had claimed. I had no sense of the beauty and romance of his fashion creations prior to this. Positioned together they are overwhelming in their beauty (such as the dress made of real and synthetic flowers pictured to the right here).

J at the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art

At the museum, I had also hoped to see the original painting of the American painter John Singer Sargent's "Madame X" with which I am a tad obsessed, but the gallery in which it is exhibited was being renovated. Curses - this is the second time I have tried to see it while in NYC and failed!

We walked north and east to Square Meal, 30 East 92nd Street, for a lovely brunch with the three kids sitting at a separate table like young adults meeting for lunch. We then walked south along the east perimeter of Central Park to make our obligatory visit to F.A.O Schwartz and the Apple Store with the kids. As we walked along the edge of the Park, we heard the romantic strains of a trumpet playing "All of Me" from the Park. 

At Tataki restaurant in NYC...

Candy, paper airplanes and nail polish were purchased by the kid - gifts for her and others ... Many pictures of candy were taken. New gadgets were ooohed at and aaahed over at the Apple store.

Around the corner we went to see "Linda McCartney: Life in Photographs" an exhibit of photos by Linda McCartney at the Bonni Benrubi Gallery, 41 E. 57th St. Pictures of Paul, of course, the Beatles, the Stones, Jim Morrison, but also pics of Kate Moss and Johnny Depp, and many other luminaries.

On the way home we hailed a cab ... a few limos came by saying hop in. I was about to but R stopped me asking, "How much?" Forty-five dollars said one for a ride ... to Tribeca? Fuggedabout it! We aren't driving to the airport. Another limo driver tried the same tactic and he wanted $25. We did finally hail a cab but it was a fairly harrowing ride downtown the in rush hour traffic New York style.

M & J

R at Tataki

Dinner close to the hotel would be nice. Where to go? Luckily there was a little place across the street called Tataki, 3 Lispenard Street, that served a variety of Asian foods: Japanese, Korean and Thai. We had futomaki, pad Thai, edamame, gyoza. It was a lovely night - warm, the sky blue black and clear. R took a series of moody but beautiful photographs, a couple of which I have posted here.

To bed, to bed for tomorrow we go to Long Beach on Long island!