January 11, 2018 - Swapping days and Re-Cap of Queens Museum Visit

Tanya's Daily Scoop
Covering the West Coast & the World
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Swapping days

Hello all,

Well since yesterday I kinda swapped the plans around for yesterday and today.

While we still ventured off to go visit Dream.

This girl was full of mud and is ALWAYS hungry! (c)travelincousins.com

(c)travelincousins.com

Dream's new friend (c)travelincousins.com

​So I decided to not go shopping for supplies until today. Help Dave with his packing today and wrap up the rest of our packing. All today!

Yesterday in addition to getting over to the stables, I managed to do a few returns (none of which were mine - I should become a personal shopper! LOL
We also managed to hit the mall to pick up an after Christmas order that Cosette had placed, go to LUSH and get my phone fixed...

The darn phone had slipped out of my hand while I was shopping in Vegas last week. Oh well - it's as good as new!

Anyhow, I've got much to do and I'm gonna book it outta here.

Be sure to check up on Elisa's column and find out all about the Queens Museum. I've never been, but a few of the exhibits definitely look interesting...
I like the Lamps of Tiffany and "the jewel in the crown of the collection" the Panorama of the City of New York!

Toodles my boodles,
-T

Elisa's Daily Scoop
Covering Long Island & NYC Boroughs
​CURRENTLY ON LONG ISLAND

Re-Cap of Queens Museum Visit

Hello, hello!
Thursday already and I've had a pretty packed week!

I'm not going to waste any time getting into things here today.  As you read yesterday, I headed into Queens for a day with my Aunt Ro.  

​We started things off with a dee-lish breakfast of hot bagels from Brooklyn Bagel Company on 30th Avenue in Astoria - is there anything more comforting than a fresh bagel?!

(c) travelincousins.com

I was surprised to find good street parking in spite of the snow still on the street. In fact, I snagged a spot directly in front of Brooklyn Bagel!

After chowing down, the two of us ladies headed east on the Grand Central Parkway to the Queens Museum.  This museum is situated right along the west-bound  Grand Central.  Access is quite easy if you are traveling west, but if you are going east, it requires a bit of circling around to get to the other side of the parkway. ​

(c) travelincousins.com

(c) travelincousins.com

Not a stitch of traffic eastbound by 10:30am when we were on our way.  In fact, all of Flushing Meadow Park, where the museum is located, was fairly empty, as was the museum itself.

Entrance is $8 for adults and $4 for seniors.  I was a big spender and splurged for both me and my lovely aunt.  The museum has a modern flair - very wide open, white, huge lobby and enclosed by large glass windows, letting in lots of light.

​From the back entrance, which faces the park, there is an amazing view of the Unisphere, the gorgeous, spherical stainless steel globe of the earth.

Open & airy interior of the Queens Museum (c) travelincousins.com

(c) travelincousins.com

View of the Unisphere in Flushing Meadow Park from inside the Queens Museum (c) travelincousins.com

Once I got past staring at the Unisphere, we made a plan to visit four of the Museum's exhibitions:  The Neustadt Collection of Tiffany Glass and Never Built New York, Panorama of the City of New York and World's Fair Visible Storage.

You may have read yesterday, how I was stoked to see the Tiffany Collection!  Well, it was wonderful.

Both me and my aunt are HUGE Tifanny fans.  The exhibition is on permanent display at the Museum  and is an independent non-profit collection dedicated to fostering a better understanding and appreciation of the artwork of Louis C. Tiffany. 

The Neustadt Collection of Tiffany Glass was founded by Dr. Egon Neustadt (1898-1984) and his wife Hildegard (1911-1961), Austrian immigrants who amassed an unparalleled collection of Tiffany lamps over the course of fifty years. 

Purchasing their first lamp in a second-hand store in Queens in 1935 for $12.50, the Neustadts built a collection of more than 200 lamps, 25 of which are part of this exhibit along with original pressed glass and glass "jewels."

(c) travelincousins.com

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Never Built New York is on display through February 18, 2018 and was really interesting! The exhibit chronicles architectural and urban schemes that never made it past the drawing board, many of which were very ambitious and creative.

For example, a floating airport, a football stadium in Manhattan, apartment buildings that double as the tower of a bridge, 100-story silo-like dwellings in Harlem and more!

Organized geographically from downtown to uptown, and extending the full height of the walls, these "models" show what could have been built in  and around The Big Apple.

As part of the exhibit, Panorama of the City of New York, more than forty Never Built projects are installed in their originally-intended locations, which are supplemented by virtual reality renderings.  

Now here is what I found TOTALLY COOL!! The museum has a smart phone App, called Never Built New York, which can be downloaded to view a virtual reality "tour" of what certain parts of the city might have looked like, had some of the creative imaginings been built!  Check it out - you will love it.

Renderings of "never-built" architecture from Never Built New York exhibition (c) travelincousins.com

Models and images of what might have been in New York (c) travelingcousins.com

Newspaper article from October 30, 1921 about big building plans for NYC (c) travelincousins.com

(c) travelincousins.com

The Panorama of the City of New York is what the Museum refers to as "the jewel in the crown of the collection...and a locus of memory for visitors from all over the globe."

This exhibit was conceived as a celebration of the City’s municipal infrastructure by urban mastermind and World’s Fair President Robert Moses for the 1964 Fair.

The Panorama was built by a team of more than 100 people working for the great architectural model makers Raymond Lester & Associates over the course of three years.

This is way cool to behold! We had the whole exhibition room to ourselves for about twenty  minutes before we were barraged by a class of adorable second graders.  As a result of being alone, we were able to capture numerous photos of the panorama from various angles.  

What I really got a kick out of were the planes taking off and landing at "LaGuardia Airport."  
​Well worth checking out!!

Panorama of Lower Manhattan on the left and Queens to the right (c) travelincousins.com

Proposed Image of a "Floating Airport" in Manhattan visible on the virtual reality app for Never Built New York (c) Queensmuseum.org

Proposed Dome like larger version of the Unisfere for Coney Island - would house theatre and restaurants (c) queens museum.org

Proposed apartment buildings that double as the tower of a bridge (c) queens museum.org

World's Fair Visible Storage exhibits a collection of more than 10,000 objects pertaining to the 1939 and 1964 World's Fairs. 

The Museum is a key resource to both scholars and fans and in an effort to provide visitors with a greater understanding of the scope of the Museum’s enormous holdings of 1939 and 1964 World’s Fair artifacts and memorabilia, the newly installed World’s Fair Visible Storage and Gallery on the second floor displays more than 900 three-dimensional pieces arranged by the date of each World’s Fair, and within these categories, arranged by donor. 

Considering that 1964 was the year in which I was born, the artifacts from the 1964 World's Fair were of particular interest to me!!  

​Having visited Walt Disney World too many times to recall, it was heartwarming to see a model of the Carousel of Progress, which debuted at the 1964 World's Fair and is now permanently located in Tomorrowland in  the Orlando park.

(c) queensmuseum.org

Memorabilia from 1939 - old NY License Plate (c) travelincousins.com

Memorbilia from 1964 on exhibit (c) travelincousins.com

A model of the original Carousel of Progress designed by Walt Disney circa 1964 (c) travelincousins.com

All in all, it was a great day!

As for today, I'm headed to Farmingdale, Long Island for the grand opening of CoreLife Eatery!  More about this and my eating experience tomorrow!!

Have a great day!!

-E
xoxo