Rockefeller, Madison Ave and Sort Of Movie Stars

 

"I believe in the supreme worth of the individual and in his right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

 

I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty.

I believe that the law was made for man and not man for the law: that government is the servant of the people and not their master.

I believe in the dignity of labour, whether with head or hand; that the world owes no man a living but that it owes every man an opportunity to make a living.

I believe that thrift is essential to well ordered living and that economy is a prime requisite of a sound financial structure, whether in government, business or personal affairs.

I believe that truth and justice are essential to an enduring social order.

I believe in the sacredness of a promise, that a man's word should be as good as his bond; that character not wealth or power or position - is of supreme worth.

I believe that the rendering of useful service is the common duty of mankind and that only in the purifying fire of sacrifice is the dross of selfishness consumed and the greatness of the human soul set free.

I believe in an all-wise and all-loving God, named by whatever name, and that the individuals highest fullfilment, greatest happiness, and widest usefulness are to be found in living in harmony with his will.

I believe that love is the greatest thing in the world; that it alone can overcome hate; that right can and will triumph over might.

John D Rockefeller, 1941

That Rockefeller was the bomb. Rich man but very philanthropic. Employed so many people building that Rockefeller centre in very tough economic times. Inspirational.

I made my way to the Rockefeller Centre, via a leisurely stroll down Madison Ave from the Upper East side, where I am staying now. There's no obesity up here. They're all slender and tanned and dog toting and label wearing. It's their uniform. It says what it's meant to say. I think?

I had a long chat to a doorman, standing out the front of some fancy apartment building. He says they can be very rude too. Why does wealth do that? It's a humbling job he said. He was a smiley, jolly man. I hurt for him a bit. He's not allowed to sit down during his entire 8 hour shift. Give the man a chair already! C'mon!

I left my fancy hotel, in my frock and heels, and did the Madison Ave thing, gazing into glamorous shop windows and witnessing early morning Upper East Side life on the street.

Even the real estate listings were in gilded frames!

See the mop? That red dress got the full mop treatment. Probably costs thousands. Gift with purchase....stinky mopped hem.

I wonder if the owner/designer knows that her cleaner brushes the filthy, dirty mop right along the base of all the expensive frocks in the window. I watched her. Every frock got the wet mop treatment. Cleaner couldn't care less. She had a job to do. Stuff the designer dresses. At least the floor was clean! I watched.... incredulous!

Seriously, glorious, heart-stopping architecture! People must have thought I was some crazy lady, exclaiming out loud and muttering to myself that it just 'couldn't get any better'.

The detail! The shops are so beautiful......everywhere you look, everything is so elegant.

'Ugg Australia' even features.

Yeah, ugh boots are the bomb here. Who'd a thought?

Please give me a gold star for persevering with this post. Blogsy has crashed about 100 times and I have lost everything a million times over. Grrrr. I have never sworn so much in my life. Yes, Blogsy I have reloaded, as you suggested via Twittter, when I had a whinge. You have major problems whether you like to admit it or not! #justsaying

 

So I got to the Rockefeller Centre (that square above is where they have the ice skating rink in winter) and headed straight to the top!

Hello gorgeous Central Park!

Hello Empire State Building?

Hello Times Square, New Year ball drop thingy.

Hello Statue Of Liberty!

 

See her, very faintly? ....on the left tip of that little island? How good is the iPhone zoom!

 

Crash, crash...Blogsy, I seriously hate your guts and will never use you again when I stop travelling and return to my laptop. Arrrghhhh. I'm going to do this post even it is kills me.

The Rockefeller complex is Art Deco heaven. Built in the 1930's for $250,000,000 (which was a bomb at the time) it's an amazing example of a building built to stay for eternity. The revolving doors are so heavy to move, I needed help to get through them!

They were pretty strict with photo taking. I was not allowed to photograph the lifts that had all these beautiful art deco, brass signs above them.

After marvelling at Rockefeller's glorious buildings for hours, I headed to MOMA and made a beeline to the architecture and design floor.

 

 

There was this fascinating video installation, addressing the ubiquitous McMansion concept. In the display, the video on the left (above) presented a series of Latin American immigrants to the US describing how they imagine suburban homes transforming over time. The animated architectural rendering on the right depicted such a home evolving as the characters told their stories, creating a renewed suburban landscape in a densely arranged network of retrofitted homes. It was amazing ..... listening to how they all thought the homes were too big and how they would change them, move family in, create a small business out of the garage....and then watching the home transform into what they envisaged as they spoke.

 

Another fascinating video display, that had nothing to do with architecture, was these 128 video monitors (above) that presented continuous footage, run simultaneously, of an artist during his last year of life. You see the artist, while recovering from alcoholism, working in his studio, sleeping, bathing....everyday activities that suggest the isolation, loneliness and tedium of everyday living. Very thought provoking.

I got caught up in an installation on bloodlines and a very sad study of a Ukranian Orphanage .... and where the children ended up after the orphanage. Oh so sad. Only one child each year gets placed with a family, the rest end up as slaves...and the rest that I can't type here as the search engines would have a field day. Heart breaking.

Look at this little darling. Heartbreaking stuff.

C'mon, how is this art?

I started getting confused and thought this was another installation.....but it was really an exit!

It was in the same room as this.....

And this! ......

Yeah, right!

.. And then the window shopping started.

Goodness, this post is going on forever. Ok, so I shopped, drooled over Anthropologie, ate a red velvet, Magnolia Bakery cupcake and stumbled upon Pokemon World in which I found the contents of my little one's wish list for one quarter the price of Australia's prices. Grrrr. It's going to be hard to come home. If it wasn't for my children, you would never see me again in an Australian street.

'Orlando'

I stumbled upon a side street, on my way back to my hotel, where they were filming 'Person Of Interest', where I chatted, to this delightful suited gentleman standing nearby, for at least half an hour .....about life, New York, Australia. When I asked what he did for a living, he said, "act in 'Person Of Interest". Ha! I had been chatting to one of the actors! Goose! Orlando was his name. Huffington Post has just done an article on him.

Ok, this post might have to be in 2 parts as the length is getting ridiculous...and the Blogsy crashing is driving me furiously crazy.

I'm heading to some interior stores today. First stop, Ann Sacks...in real life!!!! Be still heart!

Back soon,

A-M xx

 

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