Last Day in New York, New York; April 8

One more day in NYC. Today we had reserved passes to the 9/11 Memorial. They are free, but if you get the online passes you can save yourself a lot of time visiting this place. At the end of May, the 9/11 Museum will open, and perhaps it will be different then—we think the memorial itself will be a park open to the public.

And what a beautiful park it will be. There are lots of young trees, and then of course the two enormous sculpted waterfalls that fall 30 feet to a square bottom, then funnel into a second square and disappear into darkness. All of the names of the 9/11 victims are inscribed, and roses rise out of the carved names here and there where someone has come to remember. A “survivor tree”, a tree that grew from an 8 foot stump that was found in the bottom of the rubble, was full of buds and a lovely symbol of hope.

Since I’d blubbered my way through an explanation of all that happened on 9/11 when we were in Shanksville last week, I avoided the brief emotional breakdown that I am sort of famous for in these situations, but it is a touching memorial. You really get the picture that this was an international tragedy when you see so many people from other countries crowding into the memorial.

Brian's teeny tiny coffee

By the time we’d gone through the line and the memorial, we were ready to sit down for a few minutes. We found a tiny French bakery nearby and gorged on pastries and hot drinks, and we were just quiet for a little while, watching people come and go.

On to Grand Central Station, where we gaped at the great hall for a few minutes. Sometimes it seems that we just don’t do civic beauty in the same intentional manner that we did back then. Then of course I think of Meijer Gardens and realize that maybe the same beauty is done in a different way now.

It was a short enough walk to the Museum of Modern Art, where Andrew drank in the art, Natalie tried to push through in spite of a cold that was starting to bring her down, and Allison and I searched every room for a bench to rest on—seems like I need a lot more physical therapy. Brian saw half of the art that he learned about in his Modern Art and Architecture textbook at Calvin.

Highlights included Van Gogh’s “Starry Night,” Dali’s “The Persistence of Memory,” Rousseau’s “The Dream;” Allison did make an exception to her strike on art when she saw Magritte’s “The Empire of Light,” which she refers to as “the optical illusion one.” She is exceedingly disdainful of a short film that played on a loop, which included naked people. “I mean, they wouldn’t let you walk around naked, why do they let you show it???” Something tells me she will avoid any “Drawing the Human Figure” classes as an adult.

Natalie was particularly enamored of a sculpture that has some things embedded between 2 sheets of glass. When it was transported, the glass shattered in a couple of places, and the artist was thrilled with the result. Natalie thinks this is the greatest thing ever.

We had intended to get to the Guggenheim yet, to see the building if nothing else, but we were finished. Much as we have loved New York, we just needed some rest. It’s always good to leave a few things for next time. We went back home to get some much-needed dinner and start packing up.

Back at the hotel, Andrew brought us our favorite moment of the day—he changed my iPad’s Siri voice to Spanish, and then our self-professed “almost fluent” son asked Siri a rather poorly posed question in Spanish. A torrent of Spanish words came rushing out of the iPad, and his look of complete incomprehension had us periodically breaking into laughter for the next hour. Trying to communicate with the disembodied voice in another language has kept the girls occupied for some time. Looks like they all need a bit more brushing up.

Tomorrow Brian takes a 6 am flight home, and we begin the drive back to GR. Twelve hours didn’t seem so long for one day when we started planning this, but it sounds huge now. Perhaps we’ll take an unexpected night in Toledo. But the next big thing starts at noon on Thursday—the Festival of Faith and Writing at Calvin—so I really want to get back! We’ll see how this goes.