my kind of town, NYCity is…
Let’s take a little walk around my neighborhood, it’s a beautiful day. I live on the Upper West Side – Morningside Heights, to specific. Doesn’t that sound lovely, “Morningside Heights”? I’ll walk to the corner of 112th and Broadway, to start:
recognize this place?
Tom’s – the famous exterior shot of the diner on Seinfeld, and the eponymous place for Suzanne Vega’s song, “Tom’s Diner.” She apparently wrote the song in the restaurant. I must say, though, the inside does not look like the inside of the Seinfeld diner. That was a set. But this was the exterior shot. It’s fun to walk around that area and hear people say “…hey! Isn’t that….”
Turn your head and look toward Amsterdam:
St John the Divine
Right at the end of the street, there it is. The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine. It was begun in 1892. Bishop Henry Codman Potter bought the site of the Leake and Watts Orphan Asylum, and organized an architectural competition. By 1911, the Bishop and the architect had died, and a new architect was hired. The result is something of a mishmash of styles: Byzantine-Romanesque, French Gothic, and other versions of Gothic architecture. By 1942, only the great nave and west front were finished. They stopped because of WWII. Over time, others worked on it, but it’s still incomplete. Here, I’ll show you around the exterior:
a partial view of the front
a partial view of the right side
another partial view of the right side, toward the front
higgledy piggledy frankenbuilding - near the back
We walked behind the church, down into Morningside Park. It used to be a dangerous place to go, but now it’s filled with parents and kids, playgrounds, all the usual characters you’d find in a neighborhood park:
baseball games
waterfalls
lots of flowers
And now we’ve come up 110th St and we’re back at St John the Divine. It’s the Peace Fountain, and it’s super freaky. It’s meant to show the battle of good and evil, but it’s an acid vision weirdo thing:
Peace Fountain
Yeah, that’s a seemingly-random LOBSTER CLAW hanging there. Here, I’ll show you a close-up:
it's holding Satan's head, upside down and maybe decapitated?
Yeah. Weird. It used to have water, like a real fountain, but it doesn’t, right now. So that’s a little piece of my neighborhood. I like to show you around, because New York is so many things, you have to see more than Times Square or the Statue of Liberty, or even the Empire State Building. It’s neighborhoods, like mine.
I love New York City – and seeing all the sights…I think one does need to get ‘away’ from the usual suspects that get all the sightseers! I saw a lot of NYC each time I went there over three years – just by leaving the hotel and either getting on a bus – or just walking in all different directions.
On her own blog, Sara just wrote a post titled..Planted…
that’s true everywhere, isn’t it. get off the bus, get out of the rickshaw, the motorickshaw, get on your feet and just start walking. i always want to take the hand of a tourist in times square and gently lead him or her to a neighborhood. but they look at you strangely when you do that.
Love the neighborhood shots, especially the Peace Fountain. I’ll have to check it out sometime, I’ve actually never seen it!
On her own blog, gibknitty just wrote a post titled..Creativity Boot Camp: Week In Review
it’s worth seeing, but seeing it in person does NOT make it make sense.
so very strange.
HEY I recognize those streets! I went to several workshops at Bank Street School of Education on 112th Street a couple of months ago. That snowstorm pic on my blog was (I believe) also 112th Street. There was a parking garage at the end of the street. We walked down from there for our last workshop. We were bummed, cuz the Bank Street bookstore had a flood….they have great books for classrooms….
On her own blog, Tammy just wrote a post titled..I Hopped Today During Field Day, so I’ll continue…
yep, you are absolutely right, tammy! the bank street school is just around the corner from me. everything you describe is squarely in my little neighborhood. that’s so funny!
This was a great walk through your neighborhood! The cathedral is gorgeous (I can’t pass a cathedral without checking it out) and the lobster claw on the fountain – what is that about, really? Whoever designed it had to have a reason to put it there. Really cool stuff.
xo Erin
well, i looked up your good question about the claw, and turns out it’s a crab claw, not a lobster claw. here’s all i could find:
Still kind of looks trippy to me.
Wow – that is so interesting.
When I was in New York we got a tourist bus that went around the area near the university (I think the same -ish area) and the tour guide told us that the architecture made it look EXACTLY like Oxford, England.
It seemed rude to suggest that it wasn’t a perfect replica…
On her own blog, mooncalf just wrote a post titled..Brown paper packages…
If I ever go on that tour bus, I’ll suggest it for you! I’ll even try to stretch my Texas accent to sound like a British accent. Since I work with Brits, I get a lot of opportunity to try. I usually fail, miserably.
Gorgeous pictures! I loved going on a walk in your neighborhood
The cathedral is beautiful and the higgledy piddledy shot is really cool.
On her own blog, Laura just wrote a post titled..29 and holding
Thanks, Laura – I always enjoy seeing how people’s lives look and work, so I thought I’d share a little of mine. The cathedral really is beautiful, even if it is perpetually unfinished.
[...] of St. John the Divine. The Cathedral is just a couple of blocks from our apartment (I took you on a little tour earlier this year, remember?), and it’s quite magnificent, especially at this time of year. [...]