Nice day in NYC, updated

Yesterday we went to New York. Our first stop was Radio City Music Hall. We arrived before 10AM and went to the head of the box office line, to ask if they had any available tickets for the day’s shows. Luckily, there were excellent center-orchestra tickets available for the 1PM show. There are two more days left (nine shows) so if you’re flexible and get to the box office first thing in the morning you might still be able to catch a show.

From there we went to the Museum of Modern Art. The line to buy the admission tickets was long enough you’d thought Cecil B. DeMille was holding an open casting call for one of his biblical epics. I remembered that Roger L. Simon had posted that members don’t have to wait in line, so I left family members waiting in line outside — just in case things had changed since Roger was there — and went in to purchase a membership. A dual membership for two adults is $120, which is not bad considering that each single ticket is $20 (but, whoa! Roger paid only $60?). Children age 16 and under get free admission, but just the fact that you don’t have to stand in line outside is worth the membership price. Membership admission in hand, I went back & retrieved the family from the serpentine waiting line, and went back in. We had a very nice lunch and viewed several of the galleries.

The building is spectacularly good, and even with wall-to-wall crowds you don’t get the claustrophobic feeling one sometimes gets in other museums during high season. Particularly beautiful is the atrium with the Monet water lilies visible from five floors. I also loved the Jason Pollock room. Will have to come back at a quieter time of year and really take a better look. As we left, the people that were in line ahead of us were just coming in.

Back to Radio City, where the Christmas Spectacular had five, count ’em, five Rockette numbers. The Husband was pleased. This year the choreographers didn’t limit the precision dancing to just Rockettes, they also had precision-dancing Santas. It was a full house, and a great show.

In all, a lovely day in the big city, and just before we arrived to our station on the train back we noticed that the compulsive-talking man in the seat in front of us was not nuts, he had a really tiny cell phone and hadn’t just been talking to himself for an entire hour.

Update: A visitor emailed asking if I’d bring pre-schoolers to the MoMA. Considering the very large numbers of visitors, I’d bring pre-schoolers later in the year, but not now since they’d only be looking at a sea of legs (and bear in mind that all installations are “don’t touch”). Otherwise, for a non-stressful visit, bring along the Olivia books with you and take them to the Pollock room (because of Olivia) and the sculpture garden only, followed by a hot chocolate on the 5th floor.