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New York City: Books and Fossils

The Strand Bookstore

You know how much I love books, right?  So it should come to no surprise that while I was in NYC I wanted to go to this enormous used bookstore,  The Strand.

Doesn’t that just look fantastic?  The Strand boasts 18 miles of used books.  I feel giddy again just thinking about it.  Eighteen Miles!  Swoon!

These leather-bound titles were my favorite.  They had an entire section of them and I wish I could have brought them all home.

I could have stayed here for a solid month and still not have made my way around to all the interesting nooks and corners.  I did not, however, bring a single book home with me.  Even at their “used” prices I felt they were exorbitantly expensive.  Their used prices were about 75% of the cover price, which is a nice discount.  But when I’m used to paying $2 dollars for a hardback book at the Booksale, 25% off seems like highway robbery.  I made a list of titles that looked interesting, and I will keep an eye out for them in Phoenix.

*I’d like to thank Erin and RA for indirectly introducing me to The Strand.  RA organized a fantastic online bookclub last year where Erin led a discussion for “The Secret of Lost Things“, which takes place in The Strand.  I’ve wanted to visit it ever since.

The New York Library

Do you remember that moderately bad movie “The Day After Tomorrow”?  Remember how they hole up in the New York Library until Dennis Quaid comes to rescue them?  Yep, pretty much I’ve wanted to go see that library since I saw that movie.  So while in NYC I dragged my long-suffering friend Josh and a handful of highschool kids* onto the subway and down to the library.  I’m kind of an architecture geek and was hoping to “oooh” and “aaaah” over the building for a while.  This building is amazing!

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Gorgeous, right?  Right.  Sadly, every single architectural detail you see right now–from the molding to the columns to the lions and even the stone steps–was completely ensconced in sheet rock, plastic, and “Construction Underway” signs.  I was crushed.  The inside was still beautiful with most areas open to visitors–but the beautiful outside was hiding.  Which I guess means I’ll have to make another stop next time I’m in NYC.

One of the many lobby-areas in the Library.  I love all the wood paneling, arches and the castle-worthy sconces/candelabra.

I half-expected The Beast or some other fantastical creature–a gargoyle maybe?–to come bounding around one of these corners.  Alas, no such magical creature, disguised prince, or AWOL gargoyle presented itself.  Sigh, such a gorgeous building.

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I spent an hour or so in this reading room with a fascinating volume on the ancient Greeks.  Man, I wish I had more time to read something like that all the time–I need to be done with required school readings, stat.  (This is wishful thinking, my semester started yesterday.)

The Museum of Natural History

I dragged a small group of highschool kids out of bed early one morning (early being, you know, 9:00 am) to go visit the Museum of Natural History.  This is by far the largest museum I’ve ever been to–with levels and floors and extra exhibits in new wings and old wings–it went on forever!  I can’t begin to recount everything we saw–but some of my favorites were the geology and space exhibits depicting different composites that make up the earth and how, exactly, the earth fits into our solar system.  I loved the Japanese exhibits that detailed how to make woodblock prints.  Ditto on the ancient Chinese exhibit.  The museum had Egyptian mummies and Tibetan temples and an entire room of ancient pottery.  I was floored by the sheer volume of artifacts from various African tribes, and how similar and different they were from each other.  There were stuffed animals and cases of small reptiles and rooms of skeletons of Jurassic-era animals.

The dinosaur bones exhibits were perhaps my favorite, they were just so enormous!  I mean, I know T-Rex is huge and all–but it’s different when you are standing next to him and staring at his teeth and claws.  Yowzers!

Wooly mammoth, anyone?  Dumbo?  Buhler?

Yeah, suddenly The Night at the Museum franchise is no stretch to me–this place has EVERYTHING!  Recommended.

*A note about the high school kids: I was a chaperon for a high school tour-of-sorts.  Kind of random, totally awesome.  They were a great bunch of kids and we had some good times.  I’d go on vacation with them again in a minute.

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