Tourist in New York
Thanksgiving weekend in NY, and what to do? As in many years past, this year I spent a couple of hours at Rockefeller Center drinking in the season. It’s a classic: the skating rink, the holiday decorations, the huge crowds, the festive atmosphere, the towering art deco buildings.
I took a different subway train than usual, one that brought me to the surface through the GE Building, otherwise known as 30 Rock (yes, like the TV show of the same name, about a fictional TV show that’s supposedly filmed there). Somehow I’d never been inside till now, and what a sight! Pure art deco inside and out, with spectacular floors, shiny black with brass decoration that goes on and on seemingly into infinity:
And then there are the Sert murals decorating the upper walls with their sepia messages of progress and optimism, a celebration of our culture in a heroic mode. Nothing like them could, or would, be attempted today. Here’s one on the conquest of disease:
This one over the information booth opposite the main entrance has an unusual history:
The story is that Rockefeller had originally wanted Picasso or Matisse to do the mural, the centerpiece of the lobby. But they either declined or were unavailable (reports differ), and Diego Rivera was brought on the scene. But he pulled a sly one. A Marxist, he snuck in an admiring portrait of Lenin that had not appeared in the approved draft, and titan of capitalism Rockefeller was not amused. The mural was destroyed, and in its place Sert painted a more acceptable and appropriate vision:
More than 16 feet high and 41 feet long, “American Progress” was installed in 1937 behind the information desk. An allegory for the building of contemporary America, the scene includes statues of the muses of poetry, music and dance, their arms reaching toward the men of action with laborers in the center and Abraham Lincoln, wearing a top hat, resting his hand on the shoulder of Ralph Waldo Emerson.
It’s hard to get an idea of the scale of the thing from the photo, but it’s mammoth.
Afterward I wandered out and admired the outside of the building, magically lit in the night:
A crowd had gathered, facing the facade of a building opposite. It was Saks Fifth Avenue, and in a few moments this light show began to play on the wall:
Nice pix! Thanks.
*Groan* at the anecdote about Rivera. Leave it to a Marxist to pull something sneaky like inserting a portrait of Lenin into a commissioned mural.
Your pictures of NYC all lit up are fantastic, though, Neo. 🙂
Neo,
I’m truly glad you enjoyed New York City. You are made of sterner (or something – er) stuff than am I.
For, knowing how the New York zeitgeist hates my values and political/cultural proclivities, and feeling that zeitgeist very keenly as I make my way around there [my wife is one of the (apparent) majority who loooooves visiting New York], I feel I’m behind enemy lines, the belly of the beast.
Anyway, I really am happy you took time out to enjoy a visit. And — my compliments to the photographer (who I figure is you); good work!
MJR, some of us live here, and the architecture is the joy, though the politics is ridiculous. Next time come down and enjoy yourself with the buildings and museums, you can walk back into another world. In some places close to the physical world of the founders.
Neo, nice shots, and thanks. The folks from “fly over country” can appreciate this great city for walkers.
I love the deco style. I forget that it is more than aesthetic, that it is optimistic about the power of mankind to make a better future.
Those were the days…
Great pictures.
Thanks
Keep on
JimG33, I thank you for your e-hospitality!
A nice snapshot of your hometown.
Oh, the light show was fantastic, and so clever …
But come to San Antonio sometime, and see the Riverwalk all lit up for Christmas … and the school of enormous lighted fish, swimming in the air under the IH-35 overpass…
That photo looking up at night is brilliant!
It is a real tragedy that public art is no longer allowed to be ennobling, inspiring, and uplifting.
Ayn Rand wrote about it in The Fountainhead.
The Communist Goals read into the Congressional Record in 1963 also mentioned art:
I’ll bet Artfldgr has a thing or two to say about it as well.
The murals reminded me of Union Terminal in Cincinnati. My dad used to work there, and I remember going there as a kid in the early 60s, when it was still a train station. They really don’t make them like that any more.
Murals
History (Talk about Art Deco! That building could illustrate the dictionary definition.)
Only spent time in NYC once visiting with friends who had an apartment on West 78th Street right by Central Park. We were on the go day and night for a week and only barely scratched the surface. Will always remember an impatient waiter at Mama Leone’s tapping his pencil at the menu when I took too long to order and sharing a back dining room at The Ginger Man across from Lincoln Center with a party including Julie Christie. To this day I brag about having had duck l’orange with “Lara” one upon a time in Manhattan.
Neo-neocon: Aristotle wrote of “moderation in all things,” so shouldn’t you have “balanced” your post with a pic or two of the Occupy folks wallowing in their own waste to opposition to the beautiful pics you posted? Just askin’.
“shouldn’t you have “balanced” your post with a pic or two of the Occupy folks wallowing in their own waste to opposition to the beautiful pics you posted? Just askin’.”
No, neo’s post *was* the balance to the pro-OWS propaganda crammed down our throats by the MSM 24×7. OK, Don, I know you were probably just funnin’ :^).
Great pics, Neo!
I love Art Deco – seems like it was prevalent when this country was just beginning to understand how powerful we are and when we had a sort of naive, almost pure idea of how we should do things.
I love that section of NYC…Rockefeller Center, St. Patrick’s, MOMA, The Plaza, FAO Schwarz (when it was still there), and St. Thomas Cathedral (always try to go to a service there when in NYC…where else can you hear a choir that includes a LOT of Julliard students?).
No city knows how to do Christmas like NYC. I remember when my wife and I were there at the Rockefeller Center ice rink a week before Christmas, looking up at the lighted tree. We must have had enchanted looks on our faces, because a a bystander (who was probably a native) looked at us and said “Enjoy.”
I miss the old Luchow’s at Christmas…roast goose, 30 ft Christmas tree, and a Viennese string quartet.
And yep, Sgt. Mom…San Antonio’s River Walk is beautiful at Christmas as well…gonna try to get down there sometime in the next two weeks.
Obama was the Fly in the Ointment yesterday: he just Had to come and do Two Fund-Raisers on the Very Evening the Rock Center Christmas Tree was lighted!
Unbelievable.
The city fathers asked him to schedule it for any other night, on account of the gridlock Nightmare, but just like he ignored the natives in LA on a similar jaunt, he ignored the City and her inhabitants’ misery this time as well. The first shindig was a $10,000/glass cocktail party photo op with Mr. Wonderful; the second was a $35,000/plate dinner with the guy.
What a world-class jerk. This is the same personality who thought it was funny to buzz the Battery in Air Force One (you can’t tell me he wasn’t in it, laughing).
Gary Rosen: The movies of the early ’30’s are abundant with displays of art-deco backgrounds, a very elegant era of art. Of course, I am “funnin.” The photos Neo-neocon posted are light years removed from relieving one’s bowels on the side of a police car. Our society has gone from sublime beauty to squat-sh**ting is a very shot time. Cary Grant to Lady Gaga. Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy to legs-open vagina videos. It has been a short journey from “Here’s looking at you, kid,” to “F-me, baby.” How sad.
P.S.: I don’t believe that he would diss the celebrations of any other religion in this ham-handed, arrogant way. This is in line with his scratching his cheek with his middle finger “at” Hillary in that debate.
Don, did you see the hideous remake of Casablanca that was released not so long ago? Apparently the director thought it would be cool to degrade the Ilsa character sexually. Et cetera. . . .
I loathe this era.
Beverly: He, the “One,” doesn’t diss all religion. He doesn’t dine until after sundown during Ramadan, fer instance.
Don’t forget – this is the fellow who quoted Scripture by saying, “I am my brother’s keeper,” while Scripture says, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
He is, at best, a Muslim, and, most likely, an atheist. But, in any case, very anti-Christian. He hates Christianity in the same way that he hate America.
A very foul man.
Beverly: No, I have not seen it. There can be no remake of “Casablanca.” I have seen the colorized version. Awful. It MUST be in black and white!
A few years ago, someone attempted a remake of “Brideshead Revisited.” Again, awful.
One cannot repaint the Mona Lisa or recarve David.
Here’s looking at you, kid. Remember, Beverly, we’ll always have Paris.
Oh, at by the way, Beverly, the Germans wore gray and you wore blue.
Your fault for getting me started on “Casablanca.” Love that movie. Have viewed it upteen times.
“Are my eyes really brown?”
“You despise me, don’t you, Rick”
“Well, I probably would if I ever gave you any thought.”
Hoo-wah!
“Brideshead Revisited” – one of my favorite TV series (and novels for that matter) of all time. Background music – fabulous.
What Beverly said about Obama.
Thanksgiving Weekend is a great time to visit New York City.
My (now) husband lived on the upper west side in the early 1980s, and I have fond memories of visiting the city on that particular weekend. We watched the parade, enjoyed the holiday displays, and walked, walked, walked everywhere.
We took our children to NYC on Thanksgiving weekend two years ago. Stayed in a hotel way downtown near the Battery. I was stunned at how expensive that weekend was, from hotel and parking to meals etc. We spent more during those 3 days in NYC on that particular weekend than we spend on the average weeklong beach vacation.
So NYC is the proverbial great place to visit but I couldn’t afford to live there! I guess the trick is having family or friends to stay with.
The words over the doors are also key too…
The Devil–Lucifer–is a force for good (where I define ‘good’ simply as that which I value, not wanting to imply any universal validity or necessity to the orientation). ‘Lucifer’ means ‘light-bringer’ and this should begin to clue us in to his symbolic importance. The story is that God threw Lucifer out of Heaven because Lucifer had started to question God and was spreading dissension among the angels. We must remember that this story is told from the point of view of the Godists (if I may coin a term) and not from that of the Luciferians (I will use this term to distinguish us from the official Satanists with whom I have fundamental differences). The truth may just as easily be that Lucifer resigned from heaven.
-Max More
“Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history… the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom – Lucifer.” Saul Alinsky Rules for Radicals
you can read some issues here (but i make NO comment as to the source, just that there is some scanned material to look at there. what the author there writes or not, i have not even looked):
libertarian-labyrinth.org/lucifer/
The destruction of the family and sexualization of the masses to homogenize them into a functional unit of interchangeable parts… ie, domesticate/industrialize the species… has been going on for a long time with TONS of various symbolism evolving through the periods depending on how offensive their work was to the population victims of it
do not so childish to think that atheists actually believe in the devil. but what they believe is the common theme and symbolism of such, which to THEM matches the symbolism of Prometheus, the bringer of knowledge/fire
Rockefeller center is FULL of such intentional imagery.
the Fountain depicts Prometheus stealing fire (knowledge from the gods for man)… and in another time becomes Lucifer, bringer of light (knowledge. eating from the fruit of knowledge)
and through this knowledge and things like Darwinism and all that, they seek to mold and direct the future… unseat ‘God’ (order), and change nature to their will, for they are gods themselves with such power…
“I admit that I have always harbored an exaggerated view of my self-importance–to put it bluntly, I fancied myself as some kind of god or an economic reformer like Keynes (each with his General Theory) or, even better, a scientist like Einstein” – George Soros
We refer to Obama as the ‘anointed one’
Its the Same symbolism and branch of the same tree as Father Coughlin… and Social Justice trying to rework the church along humanist lines so that its doctrines follow the social needs of these self proclaimed makers of history.
[edited for length by n-n]
“The Federal Reserve Bank of New York is eager to enter into close relationship with the Bank for International Settlements….The conclusion is impossible to escape that the State and Treasury Departments are willing to pool the banking system of Europe and America, setting up a world financial power independent of and above the Government of the United States….The United States under present conditions will be transformed from the most active of manufacturing nations into a consuming and importing nation with a balance of trade against it.”
– Rep. Louis McFadden – Chairman of the House Committee on Banking and Currency quoted in the New York Times (June 1930)
Were we transformed?
“This Federal Reserve Act establishes the most gigantic trust on earth. When the President (Wilson) signs this bill the invisible government of the Monetary Power will be legalized.”
– Hon. Charles A. Lindbergh, Sr.
“Most Americans have no real understanding of the operations of the international moneylenders… the accounts of the Federal Reserve have never been audited. It operates outside the control of Congress and … manipulates the credit of the United States”
– Sen. Barry Goldwater (R. —AZ)
“The division of the United States into federations of equal force was decided long before the Civil War by the high financial powers of Europe. These bankers were afraid that the United States, if they remained in one block and as one nation, would attain economic and financial independence, which would upset their financial domination over the world. The voice of the Rothschilds prevailed… Therefore they sent their emissaries into the field to exploit the question of slavery and to open an abyss between the two sections of the Union.”
– German chancellor Otto von Bismarck
“The Trilateral Commission is intended to be the vehicle for multinational consolidation of the commercial and banking interests by seizing control of the political government of the United States. The Trilateral Commission represents a skillful, coordinated effort to seize control and consolidate the four centers of power–Political, Monetary, Intellectual, and Ecclesiastical.”
– U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater, his book “No Apologies”, 1964
“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.”
– Frederic Bastiat – (1801-1850) in Economic Sophisms
“The main obstacle for a new world order is America” -George Soros
“An orderly decline of the dollar is desirable.” -George Soros
“Happiest year of my life, the German occupation” -George Soros
“The world today has 6.8 billion people. That’s heading up to about nine billion. Now if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by perhaps 10 or 15 percent.” Microsoft’s Bill Gates
[keep thinking of how many feminists dont have babies, how its the smartest in college, and so on… just keep thinking]
“A program of sterilizing women after their second or third child, despite the relatively greater difficulty of the operation than vasectomy, might be easier to implement than trying to sterilize men. Barack Obama’s top science advisor, John P. Holdren
The development of a long-term sterilizing capsule that could be implanted under the skin and removed when pregnancy is desired opens additional possibilities for coercive fertility control. The capsule could be implanted at puberty and might be removable, with official permission, for a limited number of births.” Barack Obama’s top science advisor, John P. Holdren
Norplant
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norplant
Norplant is a form of birth control developed by the Population Council that was first approved in 1983 in Finland, where it was manufactured by Leiras Oy Pharmaceuticals.
Population Council?
Population Council
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_Council
The Population Council is an international, nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The Council conducts biomedical, social science, and public health research and helps build research capacities in developing countries.
a non governmental agency? you mean above all governments? belonging to none by distributing themselves? funded by people like gates and other elites who want the common woman to stop having babies so they can make a better world without the west and with more servile (not so smart) people?
nah…
why do that?
after all, Margaret Sanger called her planned parenthood the negro project for the extermination of blacks and Chinese, and women that had too many babies (Who did not have a politically correct mentality)
and that eugenicist, like Harmon, and Ernst Rohm… is a celebrated hero of the same elite who want to lower population today.
Population Council (from wiki)
rockerfellers funded kinsey… and his kinsey report… modern feminism… the eugenics movement… picked and paid for sterilization technology, and on an on..
but the common woman who has now had sex with amny men, may be infertile, burned her bra, and has children below poverty level more than ever, and has more desease, and so on
is the smart ones…
How do religions die? Generally they don’t, which probably explains why there’s so little literature on the subject. Zoroastrianism, for instance, lost many of its sacred texts when Alexander sacked Persepolis in 330 B.C., and most Zoroastrians converted to Islam over 1,000 years ago. Yet today old Zoroaster still counts as many as 210,000 followers, including 11,000 in the U.S. Christopher Hitchens might say you can’t kill what wasn’t there to begin with. – BRET STEPHENS
CV: I couldn’t even afford to visit there if I didn’t have relatives to stay with.
If knowledge is power
Why do you want to make everyone powerless neo by disarming them?
they have already won if the people who claim to oppose them do their work for them..
how can you complain of lies false history, and lack of debate..
when lies are shorter, and you erase the facts
when false history is more common, and takes too long to refute
and ad hominem works because its short
no time for merit
then you really cant complain about anything!!!
was it all the papers that printed the facts about Obama that allowed us to know and make a good choice
or was it the papers who like you, erase facts for size, entertainment value, and brevity?
you think you can overturn Marxism and COLLECTIVE organization spanning 200 years with short bites and ignorance?
you know…
all we have left here now is cute tag lines
ad hominems, and such..
facts, we need not facts
history, takes too long, better to have less
honesty instead of pc, cant have that, if the facts go there, erase them
how can you hold someone accountable if you wont let the account be known?
ok..
i will play the game YOU WANT
since debate is out.. its too long
facts are out.. they are not pleasant
history is out, too long AND unpleasant
then i guess just calling the left funny names, and pretending that everything is natural, and going on in ignorance is the way to prevent despotism, and totalitarianism and preserve our freedom
it BETTER BE…
as that is all that will get through
The Ministry of Truth is one of the four ministries that govern Oceania in George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. As with the other Ministries in the novel, the Ministry of Truth is a misnomer and in reality serves an opposing purpose to that which its name would imply, being responsible for the falsification of historical events; and yet is aptly named in a deeper sense, in that it creates/manufactures “truth” in the newspeak sense of the word.
ever watch the movie version?
you have the same job
erase facts, and shove them down the memory hole..
neo is winston!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“WAR IS PEACE”
“FREEDOM IS SLAVERY”
“IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH”
we are all stronger now thanks to neo and the party…
Its purpose is to rewrite history and change the facts to fit Party doctrine for propaganda effect. For example, if Big Brother makes a prediction that turns out to be wrong, the employees of the Ministry of Truth go back and rewrite the prediction so that any prediction Big Brother previously made is accurate. This is the “how” of the Ministry of Truth’s existence. Within the novel Orwell elaborates that the deeper reason for its existence is to maintain the illusion that the Party is absolute. It cannot ever seem to change its mind (if, for instance, they perform one of their constant changes regarding enemies during war) or make a mistake (firing an official or making a grossly misjudged supply prediction), for that would imply weakness and to maintain power the Party must seem eternally right and strong.
neo serves the party
she makes sure we as a people do not find out too many facts… if someone gets to put up too many facts, they can make a CASE..
and neo being a lawyer, knows that if the facts cant be assembled into a case, they just are nothings that mean nothing.
and so, the elite, the power mongers, the racists, and everything else.. all have a friend in neo, who will make sure no case against them can be built… no trend can be made… no facts will be learned
if that’s not so
you do a great job of it by accident
Here’s a simple suggestion:
If it’s possible, put a “Skip to the End” link at the very beginning of Artfldgr’s novel-length posts. That way, those who wish to read it all can, and those of us who don’t want to wear out our scroll wheel or “Page Down” keys can just bypass the entire lot.
A bit of trivia: before 30 Rock became the GE Building, it was the RCA Building. A few blocks, at 51st and Lexington, there is a the General Electric Building (570 Lexington Avenue) that was started by RCA and deeded to GE during its construction.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:570_Lexington_Avenue_(General_Electric_Building)_plaque_01.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:General_Electric_Building_570_Lexington.jpg
Finally, for viewing NYC from on high, I would recommend the vistas from “Top of the Rock” to those from Empire State Building. There is also the high-speed “glass-ceilinged” elevator to the top.
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