AMERICAN TRIP

The Empire State Building is located at 350 Fifth Avenue, between 33rd and 34th Streets, in midtown Manhattan.
New York, NY 10118
Photo: Alexis Parra from the 102nd storey the observation deck.




Conception
When the terrain for the Central Park was bought by the City of New York in 1853, it was faraway from civilization, somewhere between the City of New York and the village Harlem. The area contained sheds from colonists, quarries, pig farms and swamps.
In 1857, the city of New York organized a competition for the design of this new park, which had to rival with the great parks in London and Paris. A design by Frederic Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, named 'the Greensward Plan' was chosen.

This plan featured an English style landscape with large meadows, several lakes and hills.

Balto Statue
Winding pedestrian roads were separated from main roads and the huge number of trees ensured the city's buildings were not visible from within the park.

More: http://www.aviewoncities.com/



Seneca Village existed from 1825 through 1857. It was located between 82nd and 89th Streets and Seventh and Eighth Avenues. Today, this area is part of Central Park.

Seneca Village was Manhattan's first significant community of African American property owners. By the 1840s, it had become a multi-ethnic community African Americans, Irish, and German immigrants, and perhaps a few Native Americans. In 1855, the New York State Census reported approximately 264 individuals living in the village. There were three churches, as well as a school and several cemeteries. Within two years, Seneca Village would be razed and its identity erased by the creation of Central Park.

http://www.ilt.columbia.edu/



Wifredo Lam. The Jungle. 1943The Jungle. Wifredo Lam (Cuban, 1902-1982). 1943. Gouache on paper mounted on canvas, 94 1/4 x 90 1/2" (239.4 x 229.9 cm). Inter-American Fund. © 2009 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris





Campbell's Soup CansAndy Warhol (American, 1928-1987)




Water Lilies
Claude Monet (French, 1840-1926)
1914-26. Oil on canvas, 6' 6 1/2" x 19' 7 1/2" (199.5 x 599 cm). Mrs. Simon Guggenheim Fund
712.1959



The facade of MOMA, with garbage Photo: Alexis Parra


In the late 1920s, three progressive and influential patrons of the arts, Miss Lillie P. Bliss, Mrs. Cornelius J. Sullivan, and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., perceived a need to challenge the conservative policies of traditional museums and to establish an institution devoted exclusively to modern art. When The Museum of Modern Art was founded in 1929, its founding Director, Alfred H. Barr, Jr., intended the Museum to be dedicated to helping people understand and enjoy the visual arts of our time, and that it might provide New York with "the greatest museum of modern art in the world."

The public's response was overwhelmingly enthusiastic, and over the course of the next ten years, the Museum moved three times into progressively larger temporary quarters, and in 1939 finally opened the doors of the building it still occupies in midtown Manhattan. Upon his appointment as the first Director, Barr submitted a plan for the conception and organization of the Museum that would result in the Museum's multi-departmental structure with departments devoted for the first time to Architecture and Design, Film and Video, and Photography, in addition to Painting and Sculpture, Drawings, and Prints and Illustrated Books. Subsequent expansions took place during the 1950s and 1960s planned by the architect Philip Johnson, who also designed The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden. In 1984, a major renovation designed by Cesar Pelli doubled the Museum's gallery space and enhanced visitor facilities.

more: http://www.moma.org/about/history


Encaustic, oil, and collage on fabric mounted on plywood (three panels)
42 1/4 x 60 5/8" (107.3 x 154 cm)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Gift of Philip Johnson in honor of Alfred H. Barr, Jr.
© 1996 Jasper Johns/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY



View of NYC from the taxi on our way to the airport, close to the New Jersey Tunnel Photo: Alexis Parra









©2006 Joline Anthea Jammer
The Lenox Lounge in Harlem, an Art Deco venue, is a great place to hear jazz.


The last day in New York we visited Harlem by bus. In wind, rain and cold, it was close to impossible to walk much in the streets. As our umbrellas were turned inside-out, we decided to look for a place to take a drink. We found Lenox Lounge. At first we passed by the dark windows. Pucho insisted he saw a woman at the bar, so we turned back and discovered a legendary Harlem jazz hang-out dating from 1939. Former regulars included Billie Holiday (she would always sit in the far corner at the end of the long bar, close to the Zebra Room) and Malcolm X (the wooden top of the bar will never be replaced because Malcolm marked it up with a knife during a discussion), Miles Davis was also hanging out at the Lenox Lounge along with many other famous musicians. The interior of decorated wooden wall panels, golden metal inlays and lightening through frosted glass was a joy to discover. The zebra patterned walls of the back room can be seen in some famous movies, such as American Gangster. We decided to come back for a jazz concert in the Zebra Room in the evening.

At night, we chose to go to the second of three sets. The trio of Danny Mixon did a good show of playing traditional jazz in the Zebra Room, playing in the floor of a small lounge. A waitress took our orders for cocktails and drinks. The drummer, base-player and Danny himself were accomplished and entertaining musicians. The audience was sparse, but attentive. A good-looking middle-aged woman was enjoying the band from a seat close to them. We wondered who she looked at.

After the first set, our waitress offered us to sit through the next concert without cover charge. We complimented her about the brilliant red lipstick she wore, it looked like a shine of fresh raspberry jam. She told us about her shared flat with two friends in Bronx, how to make a life and a living.
Kristin Bergaust.




Daniel Asbury Mixon (born August 19, 1949 in Harlem, New York City) is an American jazz pianist.
Mixon is a talented pianist who gained some attention in the 1970s and who continues to record and to play in New York and abroad. He started off as a tap dancer, attending the Ruth Williams Dance Studio. Later, he attended the High School of Performing Arts with Dance as his major but soon switched to playing the piano after being inspired by visits with his grandfather to see jazz artists playing at the Apollo Theater.


http://www.dannymixonsounds.com/main.html
more:http://www.deloresmusicmgmt.com/mainframe.html