House of the Day: 743 Eastern Parkway

“I don’t know why this surprises me, but I guess that’s what I get for dozing off in class.”
And that’s what my wife got for dozing off in bed…

Snark, yes, although they don’t like to admit they’re mine. I’ve mentioned them in the Open Thread before but you must have missed it, given your tendency to focus on the more intelligent and entertaining posts.

NOP, I love your posts.

I wonder if the listing agents now regret mentioning the proximity of the Brooklyn Museum, given the lack of discussion in this thread relating to the home itself.

bxgrl, I took my kids to the Met a couple of weekends ago and was quite surprised that, in addition to their standard favourites (the Temple of Dendur, Arms & Armor, musical instruments), they were also fascinated by the European Decorative Arts, particularly the Wrightsman Galleries. It’s amazing how much there is for everyone to see.

I never quite forgave the Met for going so commercial but some of my best memories are of my dad taking me (just me and not my twin sister also) to the Met, sitting himself on a bench and telling me to go explore. It was heaven. I was maybe 10 and the guards didn’t bother you so long as you were respectful and quiet. Well, it was hard to talk much when you were dragging your jaw along the floor.

RE: Brooklyn Museum

As a youngster, I remember reading a Hilton Kramer review of a Brooklyn Museum show in the Times. In it, he mentioned seeing a little kid walking through the Egyptian section, casually taking in the collection. “One of nature’s aristocrats,” Kramer wrote. The phrase burned itself into my small brain.

Independently and unescorted, the Brooklyn kid was making culture part of his every day life just as — presumably — the elite did back in the 50’s.

That was the beauty of the Brooklyn. For neighborhood kids, it wasn’t there for a once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage, it was there for daily use. And it was free! No intimidating signs asking for “voluntary donations” that can put off younsters without pocket change.

Class trips, concerts, shelter from the rain, all provided by McKim Mead and White’s magnificent building. How different a relationship we had with the city’s great institutions — the Brooklyn, the Met, Natural History, etc. — than kids today. They were our living rooms!

And they taught us how to behave like young ladies and gentlemen in the very best possible way. By the quiet of their galleries. By their seriousness of purpose. By their gracious welcome to us. At no cost!

Of course there were the more formal times, too. As members, my parents would take me to openings when, suddenly, the museum was crowded (but still quiet) and the kind of easy frolic I’d enjoy on my own turned into introductions to the high-minded world of adults. (At one of these I was introduced to Jacob Lawrence, an acquaintance of theirs, whose Great Migration Series was on view in the American Galleries. The artist sat on a bench as if a kindly king on his throne, bending forward to shake my hand and introducing me to his beautiful wife, standing regally beside him. I stepped back thinking, man, artists have the best life! But more importantly, I saw that a flesh-and-blood person could create work worthy of hanging in a museum, creating an entirely different relationship between me and works of art.)

Now the museum is spiffed up but in deep trouble. All that jazzy new front to proclaim its public purpose. But kids of my generation didn’t need to have its public purpose represented out front. We knew it was public because we were always welcome, just like Kramer’s “aristocrat.”

NOP

Thanks, Snark.