Top 10 Reasons to Go Into Midtown

"Ugh, Midtown?"

Such is the cry of many New Yorkers, be they natives or transplants. Even I roll my eyes when one of my jobs forces me to venture into Midtown, or when I have to leave Port Authority bus terminal in the morning for any reason other than getting on a subway. For most New Yorkers, the only reason to be caught dead in Midtown is if you have "Hamilton" tickets and you don't have a choice but to brave Times Square's sensory overload in order to get to the Richard Rodgers Theatre!

Downtown is cool. The East Village has hip restaurants, the West Village has great architecture and shops, the Lower East Side has culture and history, and even the Financial District has a lot of historical treasures to find.

Uptown is cool, too. The Upper East Side is home to so many museums, you guys, as well as lots of cool shops. (For some this means Bloomingdales, for me this means Shakespeare and Company.) Central Park is a gem that locals and tourists alike adore. No one can deny the charms of the Upper West Side and Harlem. And, well, I don't mean to brag or anything, but my beloved Hamilton Grange is uptown.

But Midtown. Poor much-maligned Midtown, forever doomed to be condemned as "but that's a touristy area!" For something to be deemed 'touristy' is a bigger curse than you may think - I've met New Yorkers who would rather ride to the Bronx in a subway car that someone shit in than spend even one second in the vicinity of Times Square.

But wait! Midtown is more than just Times Square, the Rockefeller Center, and the Empire State Building! And if you are stuck in the area (perhaps while waiting to see if you've won the "Hamilton" lottery, you're sticking close just in case) then there is still a lot to do! Never fear, my friends - here are my top ten reasons to venture into the cosmic horror that is Midtown.

For the purposes of this entry I am defining Midtown as above 20th street (because I'm sorry, Union Square is not Midtown) and below Central Park.

Kids Say the Darndest Things

A little comic I made based on something that happened to me during a recent shift at Hamilton Grange.

1) I fucking love having kids on tours because they always have something entertaining to say

2) I will never miss an opportunity to make fun of founding father Thomas Jefferson

-Nym

When New York Lets You Down

New York City has a lot of stuff. Lots of great restaurants, lots of parks, lots of tourist attractions, and lots of museums. I've made it my mission to visit every single museum in New York City - and I mean in all five boroughs (though I admit I've been slacking on Staten Island). Some of them I've liked so much that I've gone back to visit them multiple times. The New-York Historical Society, the American Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum of the City of New York have all gotten me to come back not just once, but twice! And I loved Hamilton Grange so much that I ended up volunteering there!

And some of them have... well, let me down. (For example the Neue Galerie, which has beautiful works on display but everyone on the staff is a total bitch - not going back when y'all are that rude to everyone!)

This past Saturday, I had my third date with an incredible girl. (Our fourth is on Friday to the opening of the NYPL's Love in Venice exhibition - which I am most excited about, and will probably write a blog entry about!) For dates number one and two, we had gone to the Met and to Grand Central Station respectively. For date number three, we decided to check out a museum we had both heard a lot about but never gotten to. I'm talking about Queens' MoMA PS1.

My 10 Favourite Period Rooms at the Met

There's a lot going on in my life right now! I've started as a tour guide again, this time at Hamilton Grange, Alexander Hamilton's Harlem home! That's right, I'm working in the home of one of my heroes for the National Park Service!

Selfie with the bae

This post... isn't about that. I'm just so excited about the news that I had to share! I'm just so excited to show off the period rooms - the Hamiltons' parlour, dining room, and study - to interested guests from all over the world, to basically spend time doing what I usually do here anyway. (That is, ramble about Alexander Hamilton. But this post is about period rooms!

I've been to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (or as most New Yorkers call it, "The Met") 3 times now, and I'm quite sure I still haven't seen everything. But since my very first visit, way back in Autumn, what charmed me the most about the Met wasn't the incredible collection of paintings. It wasn't ancient artefacts or medieval armor. (Though let's be clear, I do love all of that stuff.) No, the best part of the Met is their collection of Period Rooms. It's charming to lose yourself in galleries, turn a corner, and suddenly find yourself in a room from the 1700s.

The Met has so many of these that it's altogether impossible to even remember all of them, or to rank them objectively. This is not meant to be an objective top ten list, especially since I don't even think I've found all of them yet. No, this list is decided by one person. Me. This is my list of my top ten favourite period rooms at the Met. And if many of them are contemporary to Hamilton's time? Well... that's mostly coincidental. Wink wink nudge nudge.

All photos listed are from the Met's website, which states that their photos are public domain.

WWAHD?

My roommate took this photo after a flash protest in NYC last Sunday. This photo was taken in front of Alexander Hamilton's grave at Trinity Cemetery.

By now it should come as no secret to anyone how much I admire Alexander Hamilton.

And lately, my life has been moving at a very fast pace full of ups (getting asked out on a date! giant creative project!) and downs (death of a mentor! politics!). And - as many of you may have realised, especially those who have read a lot of this blog - I'm a very anxious person. I do not like unknowns or change, and in dark moments I am tempted to allow my fear and anxiety to paralyse me.

Lately, with all these big changes and opportunities, I have at times been fearful and anxious. And though it started half-jokingly, I began asking myself when opportunities (whether for creative projects or political activism or even just accepting a date from a girl I hardly know) arose, 5 simple words:

"What Would Alexander Hamilton Do?"

Make fun of me if you wish. I agree, it is somewhat ridiculous. It's also helped me to become more courageous in the past week than I ever have been in my life.

I'm sure Alexander Hamilton got scared sometimes. He must have been fucking terrified on the ship over to the 13 colonies, or during the Revolutionary War and the winter at Valley Forge. There very well may have been moments when he considered just giving up. (He did once write John Laurens "I hate Congress—I hate the army—I hate the world—I hate myself.")

You know what else he did? He stood up for what he believed in. He wrote passionately about his beliefs whether they were popular (or legal) or not. He gave a lengthy speech on the steps of King's College to stave off a mob. He stole British artillery cannons and distinguished himself as he fought hard in the Revolution.

When opportunities came flying at his face at a breakneck pace, Hamilton did not back down. Hamilton seized them by the balls and ran with them. Hamilton looked fear in the face and told it "not today, motherfucker".

And that's what I'm aiming to do lately, too. 

I like to think he'd be proud of the protests that have been happening lately, to know the legacy of himself and his revolutionary brethren has not been forgotten. I like to think he'd be honoured that protestors were offering him their signs and thinking of him. And I know that if he were alive today, he'd be on our side. The man, for all his flaws, was not a fan of tyrants.

"When a government betrays the people by amassing too much power and becoming tyrannical, the people have no choice but to exercise their original right of self-defense — to fight the government." ~ Alexander Hamilton

So if it helps you to do so as it's helped me, whether for purposes of political activism or just because you got a romance or career offer you weren't expecting, ask yourself:

"What would Alexander Hamilton do?"

And then do that!

~Nym

Just Breathe - A Meditative Vision of an Irish Goddess

I discovered the power of meditation in college, shortly after switching my major to anthropology as a form of stress relief. That's how it began for me. University is fucking stressful, and my anxiety-ridden neurotic ass didn't want to develop an ulcer.

I took a yoga class in an effort to reduce my stress, and for the most part I got nothing out of it. I respect that a lot of people do get something out of yoga, but while sun salutations were kind of fun I got almost nothing out of them, and I downright hated downward-facing dog. Stretching and contorting my body into pretzels wasn't helping me do anything except feel ridiculous.

What I did get out of it, however, was that at the end of each class session the teacher would turn the lights down and instruct us all to lay on our mats and breathe deeply while soothing new-agey music was played. We would end each class with 15-20 minutes of meditation. That was my favourite part of that class, without fail. That was what turned me on to meditation.

I've done all sorts of meditation since then, whether it's laying there and breathing in silence, sitting calmly and deep-breathing in a Buddhist temple at a meditation class, or listening to guided meditations and having visions in my "mind's eye" as they call it.

And this last Saturday I attended a guided meditation devoted to the Celtic goddess Brigid - though I am not a Druid nor have I ever really given Brigid more than a passing thought, I figured 'why not?' Surprisingly, I got a lot out of it...