Big Apple Greeter

A Free Welcome-Visitor Service from NYC Volunteers

A Free Welcome-Visitor Service from NYC Volunteers

A Walk Up Fifth Avenue, Past And Present

By

Tom Keating,
Greeter-Historian

How lucky are we to have our own Big Apple Greeter-Historian: the adventurous Tom Keating. A true sleuth, he explores different parts of the city with camera clicking…and we get to savor his slide show.

Fifth Avenue has more famous buildings than any other street in the city. Tom started at Washington Square Arch in Washington Square Park in lower Manhattan. This marble triumphal arch was built in 1889 to celebrate the 1789 centennial of President George Washington’s inauguration.

On to The New School built in 1919 at Fifth Avenue and West 12th Street. It was founded by university professors as a progressive, free school for adults. Today it is one of the city’s bastions of art and design, with 5 divisions including the Parsons School of Design, the Mannes School of Music, and the School of Drama.

The Washington Square Arch


What New Yorker isn’t proud of our iconic Empire State Building at 34th and Fifth Avenue? Built in 1931, this 102-story Art Deco skyscraper was the tallest building in the world for forty years. Today, it is only the 45th!

As Tom headed uptown, we saw the original B. Altman Department Store, and Rockefeller Center, often called “The greatest urban complex of the 20th Century.”  It includes 19 commercial buildings covering 22 acres between 48th and 51st Streets.



The largest single family home – with 128 rooms – was built by Cornelius Vanderbilt II in 1883, at 1 West 57th Street and Fifth Avenue. 43 years later, it was sold and demolished, and today the luxurious Bergdorf Goodman has taken its place.

The procession of famous buildings continued as Tom walked farther: the Louis Vuitton store, The Plaza Hotel, and The Apple Store, known as the Glass Cube.

The house of Cornelius Vanderbilt II, gone but not forgotten

The Frick Museum, at 71st and Fifth Avenue, has world renowned art and a bowling alley! It is part of Museum Mile, which also includes the Metropolitan Museum at 83rd Street and Fifth Avenue — the largest museum in the country and one that’s revered by the world.

Tom ended his presentation with a statue of Duke Ellington at Fifth Avenue and 110th Street. Designed by sculptor Robert Graham in 1997, the imposing statue is 25 feet tall and a fitting tribute to the celebrated musician. But you can’t get there on the A train!

The Duke in all his grandeur

Museum of Natural History: A Thrilling Journey Through Time, With Animals As The Stars

By

When we met our guide, Greeter Doug Pirnie, at Theodore Roosevelt Hall, he promised we would get to see a Show of Superlatives: the fiercest, heaviest, biggest, smelliest, and boy did he deliver.

Doug and Ted, together at last

Doug’s narrative was riveting and fun. He started us out 65 million years ago when dinosaurs roamed the earth. The fiercest of them all? Tyrannosaurus rex: 47 feet long, weighing 6 or 7 tons, with a hole in their hip socket that helped them hunt faster.

The teeth of T.REX were serrated like a steak knife, especially handy when tearing into your fellow dinosaurs. The crushing power of their jaws was between 8,000 and 12,000 pounds and when they broke a tooth, a replacement could show up in 35 days.

T.REX looking fearsome

On to the animal with the widest wingspan: Pterosaurs, a flying reptile with claws in the middle of its wings. The claws were actually feet when the reptile landed on ground. Its wingspan was 39 feet, not bad, considering the span of an F-16 fighter jet is 36 feet.

The biggest turtle that ever lived? Appropriately named Stupendemys, it was over 5.9 feet long. The largest shark that ever lived? Megladon, 8 feet by 5 feet, but all that survived were its jaws and teeth. It lived to its late twenties, often going through 12,000 replacement teeth in its life.

Somewhat nervously, we came across the most poisonous species on earth, one that has killed over 54 billion people: the Anopheles mosquito. The female mosquito (males don’t sting) had its heyday in New York City in the late 1800s, causing malaria and a mortality rate that skyrocketed.

Rafflesia, the biggest and smelliest flower

There were so many other “ests!” to see. Rafflesia is the biggest flower in the world, from Sumatra, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines. It is 40 inches across and 7 to 30 pounds. No sweet aroma though, it smells like rotten meat. The heaviest animal that ever lived? The Blue Whale, found in Antarctica in 1925, weighs 200 tons, and there are only 12,000 to 20,000 thousand Blue Whales alive today. The scariest species for elephants? Man… who kills them for their ivory tusks.

As we left, we decided one word described what we had just seen: Superlative!

Historian Lloyd Ultan: Mad About The Bronx

By

As we filled the Big Apple Greeter conference room, historian Lloyd Ultan took us to the Bronx through his exuberant words. He grew up and still lives there. He’s been the Bronx Historian since 1996, and the minute he started talking, you could tell the Bronx was the love of his life.

Historian Lloyd Ultan

Lloyd had so many interesting and funny anecdotes. For example, did you know the Bronx is the only borough attached to the North America – which means (he said snobbily) “We’re the only true Americans in the city!”

The Bronx is 42 square miles, the same size as Paris and San Francisco. There are 1,400,000 residents who come from every continent, including the penguins at the Bronx Zoo who are from Antarctica.

A little more than 50% of residents are Latino, 30% are black, and the rest are different ethnic groups: Koreans, Italians, Arabs and Israelis (who get along very well), Irish, Albanians, and European Jews, among others.

The Bronx is welcoming to everyone. Lloyd told the story of a congregation of Jews who couldn’t afford the upkeep of their temple anymore, so an imam from a nearby mosque invited them to share his sanctuary.

What is there to see in the Bronx? Lloyd started with The Bronx Zoo, The New York Botanical Gardens and Yankee Stadium.

The Bronx Zoo sits on 265 wooded acres and has more than 6000 exotic animals. It is the largest urban zoo in the world with habitats resembling life in the wild. Only a glass wall separates you from the animals.

The New York Botanical Gardens
Photo credit: interiordesign.net

The New York Botanical Garden is America’s premiere urban garden. The 250-acre landscape supports over 1,000,000 living plants in 50 different gardens. There are tropical, temperate, and desert flora, a cascade waterfall, and a 50-acre original New York forest.

The current Yankee Stadium opened in 2009. If you take a tour, you can see the locker room, sit in the dugout, or visit the Yankee Museum.

Near Yankee Stadium is Arthur Avenue. The avenue is filled with Italian restaurants offering true pasta – which is soft and made by hand. You can visit Mike’s deli where you’ll see a demonstration of how to make mozzarella.

Grand Concourse Art Deco lobby
Photo credit: pinterest.com

Then there’s the Grand Concourse, brainchild of Luis A. Riise, a French engineer. In the latter 19th century, he envisioned a grand highway (in the middle of rural countryside) and he modeled it after the Paris Champs Elyse. During the Great Depression, developers built apartment buildings in the Art Deco style. Today the Bronx has the largest collection of Art Deco lobbies in the world.

After such an entertaining presentation, we all felt the same way: mad about the man, Lloyd Ultan.

Marino Marini: Master Sculptor of Female Nudes

By

In a small, residential building at 421 Broome Street in Manhattan, we arrived at the fourth floor and were ushered into a large kitchen by four young Italian women who served us Italian coffee.

This was the home of CIMA, Center for Italian Modern Art, “home” being the key word. We felt comfortable right away – where else are you offered coffee and cheerful conversation before a tour?

Our passionate guide Claudia, who shared her vast knowledge, took us to through the gallery, a jewel- box space, both intimate and expansive.

Marino at work

As we walked, Claudia shared Marino Marini’s history, a sculptor considered to have brought a new aesthetic to the very nature of sculpture.

Marini (1901-1980) started out as a painter. At age 16, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence. He also learned drawing and woodcuts – all in the classical style.

Then he discovered what he loved most: sculpture. At this point, he left Florence. He felt there were too many masterpieces everywhere he turned, and he wanted to find his OWN way through art.

In 1929 he went to Milan and as Claudia showed us his work, she spoke so lovingly about each piece, it’s as if they were her children.

One of his Giovinetta series

In 1939, Marini created Giovinetta (Young Lady) in bronze. Plump and voluptuous, in stark contrast to classically prefect bodies, he made cracks and imperfections along the surface, recognizing her humanity. Her arms are missing; this is Marini’s way of commenting on the brutality of World War II.

Next, the imposing, muscular Pomona, 1945, named for the Roman goddess of fertility, gardens, fruits, and orchards. Walk behind Pomona, and you see she is hiding a piece of fruit in her hand.

An inspired touch was the addition of paintings of female nudes. One was by Wilhelm de Kooning and another by Giacometti.

But the hero of the day was Marino Marini, whose 30 female nudes had protruding bellies, sagging breasts, and even thick thighs. He had the ability to humanize them, while still showing their timeless beauty.

The exhibit is open through June 13, 2020. Don’t miss it! $10 during open hours. Free for students. For more information, go to italianmodernart.com

Susanna listening to you

Hudson Yards: A Colossal Achievement

By

When Greeter Bob Gelber offered to take us to Hudson Yards, none of us could have imagined the enormity of the site.

This is the largest privately funded real estate development in the nation’s history. It spans 30th Street to 33rd Street between 11th and 12th Avenues and will include 17 million square feet of commercial and residential space. It is in Phase 1 of 2 of the building process.

Hudson Yards will include the headquarters of such companies as HBO, Facebook, Coach, and Time Warner along with new restaurants by famed chefs Thomas Keller and Costas Spiliadis. The site will house approximately 4,000 residences and 14 acres of public open space, including the Vessel and the Shed.

The Vessel

The Vessel, designed by British architect Thomas Heatherwick, is a 16-story, 150-foot-high structure of interconnected staircases. It has 154 flights, 2500 steps and 80 landings. When you walk up and down the Vessel, you’re treated to great views of the Hudson River and the High Line.

The Shed is an indoor/outdoor cultural center presenting a wide range of performing arts, visual arts and pop culture. The Shed has a space for large-scale performances; a 500-seat theatre; and two levels of exhibition space.

The Shed

People who live at Hudson Yards will never have to leave the complex. The seven-story mall has 100 shops including Neiman Marcus, Dior, Chanel, and H&M. Residents of the 285 apartments will enjoy a 75-foot-long pool, spa, fitness center, yoga studio, and children’s playroom.

Kohn Pederson Fox designed the master plan and two buildings. Other renowned architects such as Frank Gehry and David Childs will also be part of the design team.

The entire project is estimated to cost 25 billion! Once it has been completed, it will contribute 19 billion annually to NYC’s Gross Domestic Product. All we can say is, “Not too shabby!”

Artwork at the 34th Street Hudson Yards subway

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