New York City as a Wonderland for Children

If you're in or near New York City this summer, I'd recommend you travel to the upper part of Museum Mile --1220 5th Avenue. That's the address of the Museum of the City of New York. On its third floor is the exhibit "Another Wonderland: Abram Champanier's Alice Mural" that closes on September 27th.

                                     Photo of the artist painting the mural shown above on the X feed of NYC Health System 

The artist was a Jewish immigrant from what was part of Russia in 1896 but then became part of Poland. He changed his last name from Sherschewitz or Szerszewicz to a consistent sound but not consistent spelling. Before he adopted the French-spelling Champanier surname in the 1930s, he used Shampanier, a name that appears on his earlier paintings.

Champanier carried out several commissions for the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), though he is probably most celebrated for this whimsical set of 16 murals between 1938 and 1940. The murals graced the hospital ward for 40 years.

However, in 1978, the hospital had lost accreditation, and in 1981 it was slated for a complete gut renovation. The murals would have been destroyed as a result if not for the fact that they had come to the attention of Andrew S. Dolkart of the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

He recollected that even in the empty ward, the panels stood out as “witty and fun and bright," and certainly worth saving. In the course of four days in August 1981 a group of volunteers went in and salvaged 15 of the murals that then had to be painstakingly restored over many years. Now you can see the vibrant colors in living color in-person at this exhibit.

My favorite is probably the library scene. Your favorite may be one of the ones that celebrates the subway, the Stature of Liberty, or whatever part of 1930s New York city you consider most iconic.

Another iconic part of NYC that you shouldn't miss is right across the street from the museum. It's the most beautiful part of Central Park: The Conservatory Garden.  The Untermyer Fountain is one of the fountains built around sculptures in this garden. This memorial to Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Untermyer --who also built the lovely gardens in Yonkers -- is a bronze cast of Walter Schott's Three Dancing Maidens.

You can see several more photos I've taken of this delightful garden here. 

Related:

Restoring a garden and some history in Yonkers

The Frick Collection after its 5 year, $220 million renovation

Mistress and Maid by Johannes Vermeer c. 1667 in the Frick Collection. 

Has it really been five years since I was last at the Frick prior to my visit on June 22? I guess it must have been. We didn't return as soon as it reopened this spring but waited until the Vermeer "Love Letters" exhibit opened. I'll start with that as I catalogue the renovated museum's hits and misses.

Top Highlight: Vermeer

The special Vermeer exhibit is ranks at the top of my list for the hits of the Frick's reopening. It  brought in two Vermeer paintings to complement the Mistress and Maid shown above. One is Woman Writing a Letter with Her Maid, ca. 1670–72, from the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin.

The other is The Love Letter, ca. 1669–70 from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

I urge you to get over to the Frick before the exhibit closes on August 31 because it's quite an experience seeing these three paintings together in-person. The Love Letter one reminds me of Vermeer's The Guitar Player  c 1672 and a variation of it on display in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. My favorite of these three is Woman Writing a Letter with Her Maid.*  

Access to the Second Floor

Thanks to the renovation, visitors now have access to the second floor, which showcases some art in what had been bedrooms and also houses the museum's gift shop and cafe. This is generally a hit, though I would have liked the bedrooms to retain their original furnishings or their reproductions to reflect what the rooms were like when a family lived in the mansion. There are only a few dressers with no information about them. Speaking of that ...

Information on the Exhibits

The information on the art on view -- both on the placards on the walls and through the app that replicates information to be found on the Frick's site -- is extremely uneven. You'll get more than you want to know about Jean-Honoré Fragonard's "The Progress of Love," but find out absolutely nothing about some of the clocks and scores of other pieces. It is rather frustrating for those of us who would like more information. It's a serious missed opportunity for the museum not to have improved that aspect of its exhibit while investing so much money and time in the renovation. 

Ticketing and Timing: Hits and Misses

Tickets for adults cost $30. Years ago, the Frick generously offered "pay what you wish" times on Sundays. Unfortunately, it shifted that offer to the far less convenient time of  Wednesday afternoons 1:30-5:30 PM. 

If that doesn't work for you, check your local library for membership passes that will allow entry for 2, saving you $60. If you have a card at a New York City library, inquire about  Culture Pass availability. You won't only save money but time because those membership passes allow you to enter any time of day and  skip the line of people waiting to get their timed tickets.  

Allow me my rant on timed tickets, which were  popularized during the reopening of museums after the pandemic lockdowns. The more enlightened museums like the Met** dropped that major inconvenience aa couple of years ago. It only requires timed entry -- though not additional ticket purchases -- to the special exhibits. That the Frick is still stuck in 2021 even after the 2025 reopening is a major miss, but it pales beside another one. 

Really Rare Restrooms

Who designs a renovation for a building with a legal capacity of 1350 with  just three sets of bathrooms? The architect of the Frick renovation does. 

Yes, only half a dozen people would be able to use the restrooms with just two (one for each gender, though heaven knows why when they are all single-occupancy)  on the second floor and in two basement levels. I cannot comment on what these looked like inside because I never got beyond a locked door or a extended line leading up to it. 

I'm shocked that no architect consulted on this project pointed out a standard ratio based on the projected number of visitors, especially in light of the addition of the cafe. Seriously, who does that, especially on a $220 million budget?

Filling in the Sketch

To end on a positive note about what the Frick does well, I want to comment on the Cabinet Gallery. It's one of the smallest rooms on the first floor that is filled with sketches. The highlight of that for me was seeing a sketch for one of the Frick's celebrated paintings: Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres' portrait of Louise, Princesse de Broglie, Later the Comtesse d'Haussonville. 

*Notice that the love letters theme assumes literate women. I didn't think that much about that aspect until I saw the The Book of Esther in the Age of Rembrandt special exhibit at The Jewish Museum. (You can catch it through August 10, 2025. Check your library for passes, or plan your visit for the Museums on Us Day to save the $15 per person admission.) A number of the paintings show Esther involved in writing, reflecting the unusually  high  literacy rate of the Dutch at the time. You may also notice that the tables featured in most of these paintings are covered by rugs just like the table  in Woman Writing a Letter with Her Maid. 

**Speaking of the Met, it also has a temporary exhibit worth catching this summer: Sargent and Paris. Catch that one before it closes on August 3rd. It definitely worth the trip. The Met never imposes an extra charge for its special exhibits. Residents of NY and the metro area always get to pay what they wish, and for other visitors, it's possible to get in free on the first weekend of the month through the Museums on Us program from Bank of America.  Also the Met is home to five Vermeer paintings, so it will make a complement to the three you can see in the Frick now. One of them, Young Woman with a Lute,  features the same yellow jacket. 

Related: 

Vermeer in Philadelphia

Jane Austen at 250

Jane Austen at the Morgan

Why is this year's Haggadah different from the one distributed all other years?

You don't have to be a coffee drinker to be familiar with Maxwell House Haggadoah. The paper-backed English versions of the classic seder liturgy have been been a staple of the spring holiday shopping scene since 1932. It holds a place of distinction in the Haggadah chronology, which shares some insight about its origins.

The Haggadah was the brainchild of the Joseph Jacobs Advertising Agency of New York City. This was content marketing before the term was likely even used, building up an association between the holiday with the greatest focus on food and family in the Jewish calendar with a major brand name that wasn't even Jewish.

Why did Maxwell House do it? Maxwell House Coffee was kosher for Passover certified way back in 1923. Coffee itself is not a product subject to leavening or classified with legumes, though instant coffee may contain maltodextrin, which can be derived from both of those categories. Most major brands of coffee produce instant coffee that is acceptable for Passover, although none have linked their name with the central text of the seder in the way Maxwell House has done.

Consequently, the translation of the traditional Hebrew (with some Aramaic) text adopted by the Maxwell House Haggadah  held sway over many Jewish American homes for a large part of the last century. . It remained fixed until 1998 when it was first revised and then again in 2011 when the text was further updated, dropping antiquated expressions, as well as references to four sons in favor of gender neutral children.

But this year's Haggadah is different from previous ones because it includes a a special limited edition  available for orders on Amazon. This Haggadah declares it to be a "new edition: not for 2019 but 1958. That's because it's "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" edition. Just as in stores, this Maxwell House Haggadah is free with purchase of the coffee, which would have to be ordered on Amazon.

So now we have a multiplied content marketing effect: the Haggadah that promotes coffee is also promoting a show on Amazon Prime. Or maybe it's the show that would end up promoting the coffee, as fans likely will order some coffee just to get their limited edition Haggadah. Considering the fact that the free Haggadah is currently listed for sale on eBay for $1202.53, it would seem a wiser move to lay out $6.02 to get it along with some coffee with your Amazon order.

P.S. A couple of days after I posted this, I got an email informing me of a significant price drop on this Haggadah at eBay. Here's what it said:

From a relative position $60.47 appears to be a bargain -- were it not for the fact that you could still get it free from Amazon. But Amazon also has some sellers looking to take advantage of consumers who would be willing to pay for a free item. It also has the Haggadah listed for sale, and the price is still lower than than the eBay's listing even after the price cut.