The Museums and Central Park
Chapter 7
On cold weekends and winter school breaks, I went to museums they were magnets that pulled me back into them time and again admission was free. My friends and most of the kids I knew had no interest in museums, so I went to them alone. The Museum of Natural History on the west side of Central Park was easy to get to by subway. Its’ spectacular collection of dinosaur skeletons, planetarium and countless displays of odd amentia had me roaming through it for hours at a time.
On occasion I visited the New York Historical Society Museum just across the street from the Natural History it was tiny in comparison. For years there was a display that fascinated me of old revolvers and other weapons carried and used by New Yorkers in the 18th and 19th Centuries.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art on the east side of Central Park was very different than the Natural History was and just as interesting. The outstanding collection of old arms and armor fed my childish fantasies about knights and the Days of Chivalry.
The Egyptian wing of the Met with its’ mummies in their beautifully decorated wood coffins inscribed with mysterious hieroglyphs were for me wonders. The sarcophagi on display that held those coffins were amazing as well. Carved from the hardest of stone and engraved as well I wondered how was it possible for the ancient Egyptian to make them without power tools? The jewelry, sculpture and things made to accompany the dead in my eyes were beautiful.
I worried a lot about dying ever since I witnessed a gang attack and kill a man on 4th Street. My Catholic friends knew all about Heaven and Hell: I didn’t know if Jews went to the same places when they died. I thought the ancient Egyptians tradition of burying the dead with useful things to use in the after life was a great idea. That there was somewhere to go when you died and you could take things with you was comforting to me.
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Once I asked a Met docent where the Jewish Wing in the Met was. The docent walked me through rooms filled with Christian relics, paintings and statuary of the Virgin Mary and Jesus. Amongst all those symbols of Christianity was a case displaying a Torah, menorahs, silver candle sticks and spice boxes used by 16th and 17th Century Sephardic Jews.
There was a message in all that, but at that my age I really didn’t get what that message was I just thought that Jews didn’t paint and make things like the Christians and Egyptians did.
In between the two museums is Central Park the place I’d go in in the summer. Shade trees, green lawns, lakes and fountains made it cooler than the streets of Manhattan. Patsy, Angie and my other friends would often come with me when I went to the park and go the boating lake to catch small fish. We used safety pins for hooks, bread for bait and string tied to branches we picked up or broke off to use as fishing rods. It was a fun thing for city kids to do, we always released the fish back into the murky brown water we’d pulled them from.
The Central Park Zoo was a great place to visit while we were in the park. Watching he big cats pacing back and fourth in their cages and tearing up and eating pieces of raw meat was fascinating. The seals performing and cavorting in their outdoor pool was fun to watch. I liked seeing animals that I’d read about in the flesh. I was too young to understand the animals in their cages were prisoners without any hope of ever being free. Sometimes we witnessed cruel, senseless acts towards the animals by ignorant, mean, or just plain stupid visitors. We said nothing, grownups back then thought nothing about smacking kids if they thought they were being disrespectful wise guys.
In my roaming I never looked for trouble, there were a few close calls and witnessed violence. For me though life in the city was mostly fun, and interesting violence had never touched me, that was about to change.