Art Museums & The End Is Near - June 27 + 28

NYC, Wednesday June 27

Bicycling over to The Upper East Side, I first drop by a plastic model kit shop. This was my thing before discovering girls & mopeds & booze, and I still have some up in my attic, just for old times' sake. There's models of a lot of late WW2 German advanced jet and rocket designs, that the designers kept themselves busy with, and which the Nazi High Command in it's fantasy world thought might save the day. Probably also saved a lot of the designers from ending up as cannon fodder on the east front.
   The old lady managing the shop says her son built them all during the last 40 years, and that she's old enough to remember the war, and the tanks rolling around. Then she does the friggin' Nazi salute....!

The large model is of a space shuttle, that was to 'skip' on top of the atmosphere around the world, while delivering a nuclear bomb on New York City. 

Another dream plane with the same mission was a six engine Daimler Benz mothership, carrying no less than five small jet powered bombers across The Atlantic, so they could fly the last distance themselves. The fatso in front of it is leader of the German Luftwaffe, 

Hermann Göring.

Next place is the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, a place for the latest industrial art concepts. The ground floor exhibition highlights various things to help people with physical disabilities - like beautiful 3-D printed artificial legs. Aside from the exhibited things, the place itself is beautiful, with different floor, wall and ceiling decorations adorning each of the many rooms.

Exotic sportbikes like this Ducati have become so fashionable, that museums have no trouble exhibiting them too.

Above & below: My absolute favourite was this bicycle lock.

Textiles aren't really my things, but at The Museum Of Arts & Design (MAD) at Columbus Circle, I stand fascinated in front of the artworks. Of course New York is The Center of The Known Universe, so if you make it here, you're probably very, very good good. After some hours there I roll back to the Szechuan Chinese restaurant on 105th Street, where I managed to make them cook stuff the way I like it.   

Last motorcycle picture of this trip will be a Bratstyle inspired XS650. Note triangular headlight, magneto ignition, and a combined hand & foot gear change.

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NYC, Thursday June 28

Somehow having accumulated three suitcases' worth of stuff to take home, I spend an hour finding the third one in a thrift store, after which they have to be packed within ounces of the max. 50 lbs. limit. I weigh the 'stuff' individually on a small scale, and miraculously get just below the limit even on the carry-on case.
   The bicycle goes down to Sean on The Lower East Side, with whom I again have lunch at The Sidewalk Cafe on the corner of 6th St. and 1st Ave. Strolling back through town, some last gifts for the family back home are bought, the occasional mild rain is warm, and this being the last time in a while I'm here in NYC, I really try to suck in all the smells, sounds and sights.
   But today I'm finally ready to go home.

I missed out on these cafes with a bunch of probably very mellow cats present, but will definitely go there next time I'm in town.

Above & below: The town has been on constant alert since you-know-when, and even the steps in the subway has messages about calling a cop if you see something.

Wished the hallway outside Irwin's flat looked a bit more like the one in 'The Shining', but instead of eerie twin girls, and blood gushing out of the elevator door, it's just my luggage standing there. Good thing I'm not going on the subway & train to Newark, like I did back in the day.

The beautiful George Washington Bridge and the sunset over New Jersey. Here the sunset is always particularly beautiful, thanks to the petrochemical industry. 

More security measures, at Newark Airport. This is what it looks like when the military donate its old trucks to police forces.