Miles of Museums

Over this past summer I had enough time, and enough motivation stirred after full work weeks, to go do the museuming that NY is known for. This was also inspired by my good old friend Rachel Foster's fortuitous move to NY to do her MA in museum studies downtown, and so I have a buddy to help my exploration. Here's a few highlights:

The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. In general I've never been very interested in the art of design. As pretty as a chair made of porcelain chips and collected nails can be, I'd prefer something a bit more boring and comfortable. I was disappointed to find the Cooper-Hewitt to be just as pretentious as I'd feared; expensive with no real discount for students (my Columbia card often gets me in for free) and snobby staff who went out of there way to be unhelpful. On top of that, the museum was being renovated, so only three exhibitions were available, and for $12 that's a bit steep.

But, it was the right three exhibits. I went specifically for the outdoor collection, Design for the Other 90% which highlighted the innovation of technology and design in aiding development to the majority of the world that doesn't care much about orange plastic chairs or Asian-inspired paper lanterns. The innovations were divided into several different themes. The first was food & water, highlighting water storage devices such as the Q Drum which allows women (often assigned the task of carrying water) to drag water containers behind them rather that on their heads which leads to health problems. Along with each object a placard would state where and by whom the object was designed (in this case South Africa by P. J. and J. P. S. Hendrikse Manufacturer: Kaymac Rotomoulders and Pioneer Plastics) and in which countries it was being used (For the Q Drum this was in Kenya, Namibia, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania, Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, Angola). The Drip Irrigation System I had interacted with personally in Israel was also shown as well as a Life Straw which cleanses water as it is sucked from ponds. Within the Education theme a project known as One Laptop Per Child was highlighted, which will produce cheap laptops for school systems to buy and distribute directly to their students (Anticipated countries: Argentina, Brazil, Thailand, Uruguay, Libya, Nigeria. Second-wave launch countries: Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, Angola, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Belize, Panama). In Energy sugarcane and other alternative sources of heat and gas were explored. Health had numerous innovations, including cheap and viable prosthesis for the victims of landmines. Technological advances in Transportation make me think perhaps I ought to learn how to ride a bike. In all, I thought it was great to see the sorts of collaborations going on around the world as well as the types of issues that were being faced by developing countries, and how those cut across the globe so that some objects were useful in areas of Africa, South Asia and Latin America. It was a perfect Peace Education exhibition!

Rachel Foster and I took the ferry right past the Statue of Liberty and on to the Ellis Island Immigration Museum. I was sad to see that this museum hadn't changed much since the last time I had visited, or the time before that. I suppose that it's theme is a bit... classic. Going through it with Foster though was nice and it was great to reflect on our family's experiences. We especially liked that the ship menu offered "Sturgeon for the Hebrews." I'm sure several months of boiled fish made a few Hebrews question their choice to travel to the Goldena Medina. The really eerie occurrence was a certain photograph I ran into. In the section on immigrant neighborhoods and tenement living, I saw a photo of four children. I was one of them. Believe me, that little grumpy girl in front is me. Too strange. This means that (1) there is a family scandal and I am somehow related to that young girl who doesn't fit into our current family tree, (2) I have been reincarnated, as myself! or (3) genetics are more limited than we think and one of me comes around every few generations. Scary anyway you look at it.

Foster and I also went to the Museum of the City of New York. The big exhibit that we enjoyed was The Jewish Daily Forward, a look at the development and on going role that the Yiddish newspaper played in the lives of Jewish immigrants to New York during the 19th and 20th centuries. On a personal note, the Forwards Building, down in the Lower East Side, is the site of my maternal grandparents' first meeting. My Grandpa Harry, big in the Workman's Circle, interviewed my Grandma Edie there as a bookkeeper for the Jewish Socialist camp in New Jersey. It was also interesting to see the development of the articles which included English lessons transliterated into Yiddish, pointers on baseball (which was taught with disdain as a necessary evil for acculturation by the Jewish intelligentsia desperate to become American), advice columns (what to do when you groom from Russian turns you off with his "greenhorn" ways), and a Missing Husbands Report in which the photographs and descriptions of husbands on the run were printed so that the cads could be caught and be made responsible for their families.