Manhattan: East Side Part Two

   We began our day in East Harlem.  Our first stop was to the Museo Del Barrio, it is dedicated to Caribbean, Latino, and Latin American art.  El Museo is founded by artist and educator Raphael Montatanez Ortiz and a coalition of parents, educators, artists, and activists who thought that mainstream museums ignored the Latino artists.  The collection includes over sixty five hundred objects also twentieth century drawings, paintings, sculptures, traditional arts, photography and documentary films.
 
The skeleton figure in the front window of the Museo Del Barrio, is in preparation for their Day of the Dead.  This celebration honors loves ones that have passed away each year through altars prepared with special foods and flowers.  Based on the belief of the continuity of life after death, and celebrates the beginning of a new stage in life.




After the Museo Del Barrio we headed one block down the the Museum of the City of New York.  It is an art gallery and history museum founded in 1923 to present the history of New York City and its people.  The museums collections include photographs of New York City, as well as costumes, decorative objects, furniture, rare books, and manuscripts.  Also marine, military, police and fire collections.  There is a floor dedicated to the World Trade Centers, which showed them being built and photographs taken on September 11, 2001.  After walking around the museum we saw a short film on the history of New York over the decades.

We then crossed the street in to Central Park.  Central Park opened in 1857. It is a public park located in the center of Manhattan.  Central Park has been a National Historic Landmark since 1963, was designed by landscape designer and writer Frederick Law Olmstead and the English architect Calvert Vaux.  The two would also design Brooklyn's Prospect Park.  The Park is bordered on the north by West 110th Street and on the South by West 59th Street.  We walked from 105th street through the Park to Columbus Circle which is located on 59th Street.

Before arriving to Columbus Circle, we stopped at Strawberry Fields.  Strawberry fields is dedicated to the memory of the musician John Lennon.  It is named after the Beatles song "Strawberry Fields Forever".











Across the street we stopped to see the Dakota Hotel where John Lennon lived with his wife Yoko Ono.













This entrance would be where John Lennon was shot by Mark David Chapman.

We ended our class in Columbus Circle.