Category: Exploring Manhattan Block by Block

Americas Society Museum 680 Park Avenue New York, NY 10021

Americas Society Museum

680 Park Avenue

New York, NY 10021

(212)628-3200

https://www.as-coa.org/visual-arts/arts_americas_circle

https://www.as-coa.org/arts-culture-americas-society

Open: Wednesday-Saturday: 12:00pm-6:00pm/Closed Sunday-Tuesday
Varies with exhibitions

Admission: Free

http://www.as-coa.org/visual arts

My review on TripAdvisor:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g60763-d548518-Reviews-Americas_Society-New_York_City_New_York.html

The Americas Society Museum at 680 Park Avenue

I came across the Americas Society Museum when walking on Park Avenue on the Upper East Side for my walking project, “MywalkinManhattan.com”. I noticed the sign for the exhibition, “The Metropolis in Latin America 1830-1930”. The exhibition was on the transformation of cities in Latin America from their traditional path starting with Spanish colonization to a more European layout that was developed between the Revolutionary and Civil Wars with the ‘Gilded Age’ thrown in as the third generation of settlers became long time citizens and became more wealthy.

They wanted to live like they were still in Europe. It showed how the cities developed over time with planning and then with extended, unintended growth that lead to the outlaying slums. Very interesting exhibition (now closed).

A exhibition at the Americas Society Museum

In the summer of 2024, the museum had an interesting exhibition on artist Alejandra Seeber. Her colorful interactive works had some of the patrons playing golf inside of the galleries. I thought her work was vibrant and exciting. She draws you in with the bright invigorating colors and on the floor pieces of carpet whose colors lead your golf balls from hole to hole as you travel the exhibition.

The museum press release on the Alejandra Seeber exhibition:

The description of the show:

(from the museum’s website):

Americas Society presents the first solo exhibition and career survey of the Argentine artist Alejandra Seeber in New York, starting June 5. Seeber (b. 1969, Buenos Aires, Argentina) is a painter who centers representations of various spaces to explore the tension between representation and abstraction in painting. Seeber utilizes bold color and gesture to examine liminal spaces within built and domestic environments. Later work veers further into abstraction, implementing visual devices like Rorschach drawings or knit grids to structure the composition.

My favorite painting in the show by Alejandra Seeber “La Bourgeoisie”

The sign of the painting

The exhibition pairs these paintings with Seeber’s contemporary explorations of the built landscape with an installation. This survey of her work is organized around a playable golf course installed inside the gallery space in which visitors will be invited to play golf as they walk through the show. The golf obstacles become active sculptures in the exhibition, creating porous boundaries between artwork and audience. This playful environment manifests the explorations of edges, doorways, windows, and borders in the artist’s painting. As they play, visitors will be able to trace Seeber’s artistic trajectory and see how her interventions in the form and practice of painting continue to this day.

The vibrance of the art with its colorful details

The interactive art in the gallery

The art golf course

History:

The Americas Society is an organization dedicated to education, debate and dialogue on the Americas and is located at 680 Park Avenue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The Americas Society was established by David Rockefeller in 1965. The Americas Society promotes the understanding of the economic, political and social issues confronting Latin America, the Caribbean and Canada; its mission is “to increase public awareness and appreciation of the diverse cultural heritage of the Americas and the importance of the inter-American relationship.

The buildings historical past as the Percy Rivington Pyne House

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Rivington_Pyne_I

The Americas Society Building is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The building was previously the Percy Rivington Pyne House before serving as the Soviet Mission to the United Nations until its current usage. along with the neighboring buildings of the Queen Sofia Spanish Institute and the Italian Consulate General, the house constitutes one of the few remaining unified architectural ensembles on Park Avenue. The Center for Inter-American Relations was later to be absorbed into Americas Society 1985.

Activities:

The Americas Society organizes interviews, speeches, podcasts, exhibitions, readings and musical performances at its headquarters and reports on Congressional updates and local events. Many events are held at the Salon Simon Bolivar, an expansive room in the building’s Neo-Federal style with wide windows, a 15 foot ceiling and wood-paneled and silk fabric walls.

An Exhibition at the museum:

The Americas Society produces the MetLife Music of the Americas (concert series) to showcase the diversity of styles and genres of music in the Americas. The concert series is held at the Society’s headquarters.

The Americas Society, together with Council of the Americas, produces the publication ‘Americas Quarterly’, a policy journal for the Western Hemisphere. The Americas Society also publishes ‘Review Magazine’, which was first founded in 1968. ‘Review Magazine’ is an English language journal for literature from Latin America, the Caribbean and Canada. ‘Review Magazine’ also helped support the first English translation of “One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez as well as other translations.

The Americas Society has also organized working groups on the topics of women’s empowerment and leadership. Cuba, energy policy, immigration, trade facilitation and Venezuela.

Council of the Americas (COA)

Is the premier international business organization whose members share a common commitment to economic and social development, open markets, the rule of law and democracy throughout the Western Hemisphere. The Council’s membership consists of leading international companies representing a broad spectrum of sectors, including banking and finance, consulting services, consumer products, energy and mining, manufacturing, media, technology and transportation.

(This information was taken directly from Wiki and Americas Society publications)

Bertha & Karl Leubsdorf Gallery Hunter College Campus 132 East 68th Street New York, NY 10065

Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Gallery

Hunter College Campus

132 East 68th Street

New York, NY 10065

(212) 772-4991

http://www.leubsdorf.org

http://huntercollegeartgalleries.org/

https://huntercollegeart.org/galleries

https://hunter.cuny.edu/organizer/hunter-college-art-galleries/

Open: Sunday-Monday Closed/Tuesday-Saturday: 11:00am-5:00pm-See website when open.

Admission: Free

My review on TripAdvisor:

The Hunter College Museum-The Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Gallery at 132 East 68th Street

I visited this wonderful little gallery on the main campus of Hunter College on the Upper East Side of Manhattan on my project, “MywalkinManhattan.com”. It is an interesting, small gallery that exhibits more fringe artists and collections. The best part of the gallery is that it is not overwhelming like the bigger museums in the City and you can see the whole gallery in about an hour or a little more (See my review on TripAdvisor).

A former exhibition was: Axis Mundo: Queer Networks in Chicano L.A. is an interesting look at the Los Angeles based queer Chicanx artists between the late 1960’s and early 1990’s and is the first of its kind to excavate histories of experimental art practice, collaboration and exchange by a group of artists in Los Angeles (Hunter College Gallery).

The Axis Mundo Exhibition

Currently the museum is hosting the BFA Final Projects and there is a combination of video, paintings and photography to choose from. There is some interesting sculpture work by some of the graduating seniors so take some time in the afternoon to visit the gallery.

The Axis Mundo Exhibition

I visited the Gallery again in March of 2021, when the campus open after COVID rules lifted. The exhibition being shown was entitled “The Black Index”, a series of Black artists were being featured.

“The Black Index” features the works of artists Dennis Delgado, Alicia Henry, Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle, Titus Kaphar, Whitfield Lovell and Lava Thomas. The artists included in The Black Index build upon the tradition of Black self-representation as an antidote to colonialist images. Using drawing, perform, performance, printmaking, sculpture and digital technology to transform the recorded image, these artists question our reliance on photography as a privileged source for documentary objectivity and understanding. Their works offer an alternative practice-a Black Index-that still serves as a finding aid for information about Black subjects, but also challenges viewers desire for classification (Hunter Gallery website).

Artist Alicia Henry’s work “Analogan III”

The works in The Black Index make viewers aware of their own expectations of Black figuration by interrupting traditional epismologies of portraiture through unexpected and unconventional depictions. These works image the Black body through a conceptual lens that acknowledges the legacy of Black containment that is always present in viewing strategies. The approaches used by Delgado, Henry, Hinkle, Kaphar, Lovell, and Thomas suggest understandings of Blackness and the racial terms of our neo-liberal condition that counter legal and popular interpretations and in turn offer a paradigmatic shift within Black visual culture (Hunter Gallery website).

“The Black Index” works (Hunter Gallery)

The nice part of these galleries are that it takes about 45 minutes to view the whole exhibition.

The BFA Art Show at the Hunter College Galleries

In the Spring 2025, I stopped into the galleries to visit the Undergraduate show, CODA.

The students featured in the show

The front galleries

The entrance to the main gallery

This piece is called “Flushed Toast”

Then in the main part of the gallery, there were a few pieces of yarn work that I thought were very interesting.

The works made of acrylic yarn by artist Demi Artemisa Espinoza

Artist Demi Artemisa Espinoza works

My favorite work in the show ‘Smiling Cheek to Cheek’

In the middle of the gallery, there were interesting modern sculptures.

The middle gallery

This was quite unique

Paintings in the show

Video works from student artist Aviella Holle

Video Artist Aviella Holle

The undergraduates in this Art program did an excellent job and I thought the works were very original.

The History of the Berth and Karl Leubsdorf Gallery:

(From the Hunter College Art Galleries website)

The Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Gallery focuses on presenting historical and scholarly exhibitions and programming that provide new scholarship on important and often under-represented artists and art movements. Located on the Hunter College’s main campus, the gallery also hosts the BFA degree exhibitions each semester.

The Hunter College Art Galleries, under the auspices of the Department of Art and Art History, have been a vital aspect of the New York cultural landscape since their inception over a quarter of a century ago. The galleries provide a space for critical engagement with art and pedagogy, bringing together historical scholarship, contemporary artistic practice and experimental methodology. The galleries are committed to producing exhibitions, events and scholarship in dialogue with the intellectual discourse generated by the faculty and students at Hunter and serve as an integral extension to the department’s academic programs.

Aviation Hall of Fame 400 Fred Wehran Drive Teterboro, NJ 07608

Aviation Hall of Fame

400 Fred Wehran Drive

Teterboro, NJ 07608

(201) 288-6344

http://www.njahof.org

Home

Open: Monday Closed/Tuesday-Sunday: 10:00am-4:00pm/Three Sessions Daily: 10:30 AM-Noon, 12:30 PM-2:00 PM, and 2:00 PM-3:30 PM

Admission: Adults $20.00/Seniors and Children 3-12 $15.00/Children Under 2 Free

TripAdvisor Review:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g46865-d3474448-Reviews-Aviation_Hall_of_Fame_of_New_Jersey-Teterboro_New_Jersey.html?m=19905

The Aviation Hall of Fame Museum at 400 Fred Wehran Drive

The Wright Brothers display

The Welcome display when you walk into the museum.

The Aviation Hall of Fame Museum of NJ is a very unique museum if you are interesting in everything aviation from the history of flight starting with the Wright Brothers, the World War drama and battles and the influence of the NASA and members from New Jersey who have made a difference in the department.

NASA Display featuring Montclair, NJ resident Buzz Aldrich

There is a lot of interactive displays during “Open Cockpit Days” at the museum and equipment that you can walk into and explore from planes and rescue trucks. There is even a First Class section of a TWA flight. I was impressed that the airline even had a standard of dress for the flight.

The front of the TWA Flight plane

The TWA Display of items from the ‘Golden Era’ of flying

The History of the Museum:

(from the museum website)

Founded in 1972, the Aviation Hall of Fame & Museum of New Jersey is dedicated to the preservation of the Garden State’s distinguished, two century aviation and space heritage. The men and women whose outstanding aeronautical achievements have brought world-wide recognition to the state are enshrined in the Hall of Fame.

The Aviation Hall of Fame in the main part of the first floor

The inductees in the Hall of Fame

The Kelly Brothers from West Orange, NJ

Some of the most famous inductees

The recently expanded museum offers visitors an opportunity to view historic air and space equipment and artifacts, photographs, fine art and an extensive model collection. The library has more than 4000 volumes and hundreds of aviation video tapes. The New Jersey Aviation Hall of Fame & Museum offers education programs for individuals or groups. Participants learn history and science.

The “Flying Aces” display

Our Aeronautical History Hunt is available to groups that visit the museum. By seeking the answers to historical New Jersey aviation questions, students develop problem solving, logic and communication skills. Our ‘Dare to Fly’ program, developed for children ages 7 to 15 focuses on ballooning and powered flight. Participants design, build and fly their gliders. Organize a small group and call for dates.

(Information from New Jersey’s Aviation Museums)

Museum Guide: A companion virtual tour for your electronic device is available free at http://www.njahof.org/

Welcome to the First State Aviation Hall of Fame in the Nation!

Founded in 1972, the Aviation Hall of Fame and Museum of New Jersey (AHOF-NJ) is dedicated to the preservation of the Garden State’s distinguished aviation and space heritage. The men and women whose outstanding aeronautical achievements have brought world-wide acclaim to the state are enshrined in the AHOFNJ.

The set-up of the Museum:

Raymond R. Wells Theater

The first stop on your self-guided tour is in our 60 seat theater where you will experience the saga of NJ aerospace history in our information and concise nine-minute film “Flight”.

The Naval Display in the Flight Theater

Buzz Aldrin Exhibit:

Jersey boy makes good on the first mission to the moon. The story of his life and his time with the space program

The NASA Display with Buzz Aldrin

The full display

NASA Display

Hall of Fame:

Enter the heart of our museum and meet the men and women who embody NJ’s rich heritage of flight.

The NJ Aviation Hall of Fame

Dehmel Room:

See the world’s first electronic flight simulator built by legendary Curtiss-Wright, at one time the Garden State’s biggest aerospace company. The room also contains information about barnstormers, Tuskegee Airmen, flying aces, Flying Tigers, Enola Gay, etc.

NASA Hall of Fame

New Jersey Women in Aviation display

The Curtis Wright equipment

The Great Room:

History comes alive with air and space equipment, artifacts, photographs, fine art, multimedia displays, hands-on exhibits and interactive simulators.

Exhibits are:

*The worlds first hover craft

*Women in Aviation

The Amelia Earhart display

The New Jersey Women in Aviation display

*Aircraft and rocket engines built in NJ

*International Space Station Exhibit

*Dassault Fundamentals of Flight Exhibit

*Scorpion helicopter

*Actual fragments from the ill-fated German Zeppelin, The Hindenburg

The Hindenburg disaster

The artifacts from the Hindenburg disaster

*Hot-air balloon basket

*Working jet engine

*”Touchable parachute

*Curtis-Wright display

*Rutan “Quickie” home-built experimental aircraft

*Overhead Gallery

Outdoor Displays:

The outdoor plane display

Our outdoor displays incorporate a Martin 202A airliner from the 1950’s. Bell Cobra attack helicopter that flew actual combat missions during the Vietnam War. Bell 47-one of the first practical helicopters. Coast Guard Sikorsky helicopter. Lockheed LASA-60 bush plane. Grumman OV-1A Mohawk. Walters Airport Rescue & Firefighting Vehicle. Convair 880 Jetliner Cockpit (during open cockpit weekends.)

The helicopter display

The Jeeps and planes

The TWA display

Second Floor: From the balcony, enjoy the view of The Great Room. Sit in the cockpit of our “Little Cut Up” make-believe airplane and make things move on the wings and tail.

View from the second floor

The Teterboro Airport display

The area also includes: Newark Airport Diorama, B-52 ejection seat, Richard E. Byrd Exhibit, barnstormers, model airplane collection, Peoples Express exhibit, the NJ designed “Para-Plane”, a working airport beacon and Clarence Chamberlin Exhibit.

The Jump Seat display on the second floor of the museum

Silvio Cavalier Research Library: This library contains over 3,500 volumes and videos on aviation and space history.

Gift Shop: Don’t forget to visit the gift shop, brimming with aviation related gifts, books and mementos for yourself, family and friends.

Tours-Parties: We offer group tours, birthday parties and our educational Dare-To-Fly program for young groups. Call for details.

Special Events: Four times a year we have Open Cockpit Day where you and your family can sit in the pilot seat of airplane and helicopter cockpits. In December, Santa will fly over the museum in a helicopter, then visit with the children.

The vehicle display on the first floor

The Aviation Hall of Fame and Museum of New Jersey (AHOF) reserves the right to use for promotional purposed any photograph/video taken at AHOF or any AHOF event. By visiting AHOF or participating in any AHOF event, you are permitting AHOF to use these images.

This is such a great museum for families and especially for children.

(Information from the AHOF Museum Guide)

Disclaimer: This information was taken directly from the AHOF pamphlets and I give them full credit for the information. Please call the museum for any further information.

Asia Society and Museum 725 Park Avenue at 70th Street New York, NY 10021

Asia Society & Museum

725 Park Avenue At 70th Street

New York, NY 10021

(212) 288-6400

AsiaSociety.org/NY

https://asiasociety.org/new-york

Open:

Museum: Tuesday-Sunday-11:00am-6:00pm, Friday-11:00am-9:00pm

Asia Store: Monday-Sunday-11:00am-6:00pm, Friday-11:00am-9:00pm

Garden Court Cafe: Tuesday-Sunday, 11:30am-3:00pm; Reservations: (212) 570-5202

Asia Society is closed on major holidays. Please check AsiaSociety.org/NY for updates on museum, store and cafe hours.

Fee: $12.00 Adults/$10.00 Seniors/$7.00 Students with ID/Free to members and children under 16/Free Admission Fridays, 6:00pm-9:00pm

Adult, Student and Teacher tours:

For information or to schedule a tour, call (212) 327-9237

*Wheelchair accessible/available for use during visits/Complimentary cell phone audio tour available/Assistive listening devices and headsets available for many programs.

TripAdvisor Review:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g60763-d531995-Reviews-Asia_Society_and_Museum_Garden_Court_Cafe-New_York_City_New_York.html?m=19905

History of the Museum:

The entrance to the Asian Society Museum

John D. Rockefeller 3rd (1906-1978) , who established Asia Society in 1956, firmly believed that art was an indispensable tool for understanding societies. From 1963 to 1978, he and his wife, Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller (1909-1992), worked with art historian Sherman E. Lee (1918-2008) as an advisor to build the Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection, which was later bequeathed to Asia Society.

The Rockefeller Collection

The group of spectacular historical objects they assembled-including sculpture, painting and decorative arts-became the core of the Asia Society Museum Collection and is world renowned. The Collection, now consisting of approximately 300 pieces, is distinguished by the high proportion of acclaimed masterpieces, to which additional high-quality gifts and acquisitions have been added since the original bequest to Asia Society. The Collection has particular strengths in Chinese ceramics of the Song and Ming periods, Chola-period Indian bronzes and Southeast Asian sculptures.

Extraordinary examples of decorative art in the acclaimed Asia Society Museum collection include a number of superior East Asian ceramics, which make up more than one-third of the Collection. A luminous pair of twelfth-century Korean bowl and saucer sets, covered with the celebrated celadon glaze of the Goryeo period and an extraordinary tea leaf jar, decorated with mynah birds and accented with silver by Japanese ceramic artist Nonomura Ninsei (active ca. 1646-1677) are among the ceramic highlights.

Walking around the museum

An exquisite solid silver Chinese stem up that dates to the late seventh or early eighth century also stands out as an exceptional masterpiece of decorative art within the Collection. The skill of the craftsman is evident in the fine embossing, chasing and engraving of the birds, flowers and scrolling vines on the exterior of the cup.

Two other great strengths of the Collection are Hindu and Buddhist sculpture from South and Southeast Asia. An eleventh-century processional sculpture of the elephant-headed Hindu deity Ganesha is an endearing example produced by the South Indian master bronze casters at that time and one of the fifteen important Chola-period bronzes in the Collection.

Another great treasure is a rare eighth-century inscribed and dated inlaid-brass crowned Buddha seated on a lotus rising from water inhabited by serpent deities (nagas) from Kashmir or northern Pakistan. A sculpture of the serene and slender Buddhist Bodhisattva Maitrya stands just over an impressive three-feet tall and represents the pinnacle of Thai metal casting during the eighth-century.

These objects and the Asia Society Museum Collection as a whole continue to be an important means for sharing the talent, imagination, and deep history of the peoples of Asia with audiences all over the world.

(From: Masterpieces from the Asia Society Museum Collection)

We are …Policy

With top-level experts and advisors-including former heads of state and cabinet officials, CEOs, civil society leaders and scholars-the Asia Society Policy Institute creates solutions that advance Asia’s prosperity, security and sustainability. Its projects include working to strengthen regional security institutions and mechanisms in Asia, assessing the impact of China’s rise and tracking its economic reform program, recommending pathways to an inclusive and high-standard Asian trade architecture, charting a path for India’s admission to APEC and designing strategies for Northeast Asian economics to link carbon markets and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The Asia Society Center on U.S. China Relations seeks to build mutual understanding between the two countries through projects and events on policy, culture, business, media, economics, energy and the environment.

We are…Arts

Transforming Americans understanding of Asia through exhibitions and performing arts was at the heart of our founder’s vision. The bequest of the Mr. & Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection of traditional Asian art in 1979 spurred the building of our New York headquarters. Today, our ground-breaking exhibitions of traditional, modern and contemporary art-as well as performing arts, film and author programs-are presented to the highest acclaim at our centers in New York, Hong Kong and Houston and at venues all over the world. Global initiatives such as the Arts & Museum Summit bring together museum and cultural leaders from across Asia, the United States and Europe further appreciation of Asian arts.

The gift shop at the Asia Society

We are …Education

A rising Asia requires a rising generation of students to understand its cultures and complexities. The Center for Global Education at Asia Society has developed an internationally recognized approach to foster the global competence of students, aiming to improve the capacity of 100,000 educators to instill global competence in 4 million youth by 2030. We partner with leaders and institutions from around the world to transform teaching and develop global-ready students. We also lead a major effort to bring Mandarin language instruction and the study of China and Chinese culture to children in the United States and to bring global learning to American after school programs, in pursuit of best practices in global education.

(From Asia Society pamphlet)

Asia Society is a non-profit, nonpartisan organization offering dynamic public programming at our cultural centers in New York, Hong Kong and Houston and at our other global locations in the United States, Asia and Europe.

Asia Society appreciates the support of its members, who aid our vital mission of preparing Asians and Americans for a shared future. For more information, AsiaSociety.org.

Disclaimer: This information was taken directly from the pamphlets from the Asia Society in New York City. I give them full credit for all the information. Please see the above hours and programs and call the above numbers for more information.

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