I moved from Qatar to upstate New York a little over a year ago. In that time, I've made around 4 trips to New York City, and fallen in love with the city. Each trip I got to spend time with some really good friends. Every time I was there, I've thought of sharing my trip through photos here on the blog, and every time, I have procrastinated. Now, I have so many photos that need to be shared sitting in my Lightroom catalog, and that's what I have decided to share today... Because some New York moments deserve to be shared. This is the second in a series of four.
In this post, there are 3 stories I want to talk about, all 3 about a time when I was making a brief stop in NYC.
Enjoy!
My first Amtrak ride - Winter in New York
December 2022. I was traveling to Qatar for the winter break, and decided to spend a couple of days in New York City. This time, I left for the city on a train. The train from Rochester to New York follows the Erie Canal, which was built in the 19th century, connecting Lake Erie to the Hudson River. Back then, the canal was used to transport goods and is credited for making New York City an important commercial hub, as it connected the city to the west. The canal connects to the Hudson river near Albany, which is where the train made a stop.
I saw an Amtrak officer ushering passengers to their train car and the scene reminded me of The Polar Express. That's when I also noticed how good the sunlight was, and decided to take a picture on my camera.
Later that evening, I reached the city. This time, I stayed with my friend Manan in Harrison, New Jersey. We traveled to New York with the PATH Train almost every day.
December was pretty cold, and you could really feel the winds in the streets of NYC and NJ, which were up to 20+ mph (32+ kmph).
The winter was so cold that I hated taking my hands out of my pockets. No amount of layering felt enough, and I couldn't feel my fingers under my gloves.
One day, while walking to the Harrison train station, I found icicles under a flyover!
It was even colder upstate, where there was a winter storm, so I'm glad I was able to escape it.
Besides the cold, the city was preparing itself to celebrate Christmas. Every place, from the Oculus to Bryant Park and Rockefeller Center was decked up in Christmas themes. It was really cute.
But this time, I was also prepared for the cold, with a brown turtleneck and a coat I thrifted from Goodwill for $7!
Later that Christmas night, I caught up with some of my friends from Simon Business School, and we went to a music gig at Mezzrow Jazz Club in West Village. Typically, entry into Mezzrow is ticketed, however since it was Christmas, they let us attend for free! I love jazz gigs in New York City so much.
One day, Manan, friends, and I walked in the High Line and went to little Island. Luckily, the sky was clear around sunset and I got to see WTC stand high in the Southern Manhattan skyline.
The serendipitous visit to the TWA Hotel
My winter trip in Qatar ended in January. The flight landed at the JFK airport in the middle of the night. My plan was to spend the city before I left for Rochester. I was especially looking forward to checking out the Edward Hopper exhibition at the Whitney Museum with my friend Anya.
But first, I needed to find a place to stay the night. Being the broke college student that I am, I decided to wait a couple of hours before sunrise at the airport itself. An airport employee suggested the TWA Hotel lounge. It was free, it had WiFi and power outlets, so that's where I went. I was definitely not prepared for what I was about to see.
The lobby of this hotel is something else. It's actually an old airport for the Trans World Airlines, now turned into a hotel - a celebration of the golden age of flying. The place was originally designed by architect Eero Saarinen and Associates. Apparently, TWA made it so because they wanted people to really appreciate flight before they even stepped into their plane. The terminal closed in 2001 and reopened as a hotel over 10 years later, renovated carefully by firm Beyer Blinder Belle.
Unfortunately, since I had over 3 bags of luggage with me, I didn't explore too far into the lounge. Still, there was plenty to see here.
Inside the lounge, I felt a great sense of Americana, Modernism, and a tiny hint of art deco. This would make sense, since the place was inaugurated in 1962, a time when the Modern style was in full swing, thanks to Mies van der Rohe.
The whole place is covered with clattering split-flap displays that show departure times of airlines of the last century (it was only that day that I found out that the displays are called so).
I sat in the check in lounge. Soon, the stranger sitting next to me and I struck up a conversation. He is a psychology professor, teaching somewhere in Vermont or Maine. He'd come to New York City for a conference and was, like me, waiting for dawn before he'd board his flight. Now that I had someone I could trust my bags with, I decided to explore the lounge further.
I noticed that of the floor and the walls are cladded with small, circular ceramic tiles. Apparently many of these were challenging to restore as they had to exactly match Saarinen's originals, but they were able to match the original specifications almost exactly, none of the tiles looked out of place in any way.
On the right of the entrance is the Food hall where I saw some other travelers waiting, buying their late night snacks. The circular arching shapes of the hotel make for unique subjects to photograph.
A flight of stairs shows the view of the entire lounge from above. Over the last year, I've become a huge fan of the contrast between red and green, and I really like how it is brought out in this hotel lounge. The walls aren't green, but the warm lighting brings out some green undertones.
The simplicity of the railings here really caught my eye. Also in the background is a BMW Isetta. On the floor above it, in the dark are some mannequins wearing clothes from the 50s/60s.
Even the outside of the hotel entrance boasts some 20th century cars, like this 1961 Lincoln Continental.
I definitely missed one important part of the hotel, Connie: The 100-seater Lockheed plane that's been converted into a bar, that sits outside the building. I'll definitely be going back for that one.
Once the sun started to rise, I started my journey to Anya's. Manhattan was two hours away, and there was a long day ahead of me.
Perusing "Edward Hopper's New York" at the Whitney
I had a short R&R at Anya's and we decided to leave for brunch to a café in the Meatpacking District: Kobrick Coffee.
After that, we headed to the Whitney Museum, which is pretty close to Chelsea Market. The exhibition was something I'd been looking forward to since the last time I was in New York City. Back then, I'd also visited the museum and seen some of the pieces of Edward Hopper's art in their collection, but this exhibition definitely had more.
It was the middle of January, I was not expecting such a huge crowd as most tourists typically come during the winter break. However, Whitney Museum was filled to the brim with people interested in Hopper's work. The last time, I spoke to one person who was a Hopper aficionado, but this time, everyone was.
There was staff guiding folks through the paintings, and from time to time, I would tune in and listen to them (whenever I could make it through the crowd, that is!). I learnt that in Hopper's voyeuristic paintings - which there are many of - have the perspective of an onlooker seeing through an invisible windowpane. I started to notice the invisible windowpane in many of his paintings henceforth (Nighthawks is probably an exception, with only the corner of the window visible).
This exhibition did not feature Nighthawks however, which is perhaps Hopper's most famous work (Many sketches were present, though!). That painting still sits in Chicago. The exhibition did, however, house my favorite Hopper Painting: New York Movie, which features a theater's usherette in her thoughts. Is she morose? Or just lost in thoughts, possibly uninterested in the movie she's probably seen 10 times by now?
The Exhibition label read, "This work depicts three distinct features within the movie house: the screen, the moviegoers watching it, and the usher tasked with watching them. The space itself is an amalgam of Hopper's on-site research from four New York theaters: the Globe, Palace, Republic, and Strand... Examples from the fifty three extant sketches, some of which are on view nearby, show both the design flourishes characteristic to each theater as well as certain architectural typologies common to all."
Hopper often made paintings combining scenes from his sketchbook which he carried while exploring the city. His paintings didn't generally represent a singular place, but the combination of multiple scenes. One exhibition label read, "Hopper painted an imagined New York, one in which he synthesized elements from disparate locations - a revolving door, shadows on a façade - and altered them to suit his interests."
New York Movie is known to have the highest amount of sketches for any painting Hopper made. Edward Hopper's wife Josephine modeled for these sketches, and many other works.
My friend, Neeraja, got me a keychain with Hopper's New York Movie on it later.
Edward and Josephine were big fans of the movies, and they frequented the theaters. Some of Hopper's paintings also feature theaters, like New York Movie and Sheridan Theater.
Before Hopper turned his attention fully towards painting, he was a commercial illustrator. The exhibition had a whole room featuring his illustrations. In 1915, he discovered etching, before he started focusing solely on paintings in 1928. He produced around 70 etchings. Some of them were present in this exhibition.
Early Sunday Morning is an interesting one. It's the piece I saw in Whitney even in July last year, and it stays here. It's a really simple composition with repeating elements, yet what I find most interesting about it is the sunlight (Hopper's work with light is something I've always been a fan of, and you can read about it on my post). When I first visited Whitney and walked around the Chelsea Market area, I saw a modern building that closely resembled the building in this painting! See the resemblance?
After taking in all the artwork at the exhibition, Anya and I decided to head out. Fully inspired by the artwork by Edward Hopper, I quickly snapped this picture on my phone.
I am so proud of the framing here! The sunlight is hitting the stairwell just right. There is also a huge diagonal going from the left to the right, kind of cutting the scene in half. The person standing in the shadows with their head not included in the photo adds a right level of anonymity which I typically strive for in my street photos. The only thing I don't like about this photo is perhaps the visual noise outside the window before the Hudson river. I wish I could remove it, but I'm no painter.
Now, the lack of sleep from the previous night was finally starting to catch up to me. Anya and I decided to call it a day. Anya was headed to her sister's that day so I offered to drop her off at the Grand Central station, while she allowed me to rest at her apartment before I left. Very grateful, I spent the remainder of the evening resting there before I too took off for Rochester.
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amazing blogs, saptarishi :)