This is the description for Thomas Tarangioli Compilation

Thomas Tarangioli Compilation

A description of various artworks in and around Bryant Park.

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 Step below grade at the subway to check out the Arts for Transit work by Sam Kunce -Under Bryant Park' from 2002. According to the Arts for Transit website: -The artist based the project on the idea of systems. In her words, 'People travel the subway system, water and other utility services are delivered by pipes, and plants and trees that provide grace and softness against the city's sharper edges find their way to water and nutrients underground through a system of roots. In a similar way, literature is shared by systems of learning and lending, and many animals inhabit systems of burrows just as humans systematically divide portions of larger habitats above ground." 

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 As you climb out from the subway, head East on 41st Street in front of the Library to Park Avenue and look down. There are a series of plaques in the sidewalk called Library Walk by Gregg LeFevre. If you continue on Park Avenue towards 40th Street, you will notice additional sidewalk medallions. Here Gregg LeFevre has commemorated some of the former designed by the tenants of 101 Park Avenue which used to be known as the Architects Building. 

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There are two statues in classical style located in the niches of the library entitled 'Truth' and 'Beauty'. These were created by Frederick MacMonnies in 1914-1920. Truth, the partially clad male figure, sits on a sphinx-the symbol of mystery.  And if you get a chance to go into the Library, be sure to check out the Richard Haas 2003 mural in the Dewitt Clinton Reading Room and the Edward Laning 1940 mural entitled 'The History of the Recorded Word."  Haas discusses his mural in the audio clip.

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 In Grand Central Terminal are other works of interest, including 'As Above, So Below' by Ellen Driscoll, 'Flight' by Richard Lippold, and 'Sirshasana' by Donald Lipsky. 

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 On Richard Haas's mural Eight Manhattan Views, completed in 1979. It can be found at the New York University Center for Continuing Education at 11 W. 42nd St. 

To celebrate the richness of the public art around Grand Central, we put together a walking tour which is modeled on the acoustiguide you might get in a museum.  You can listen to the entire tour below, download it to your ipod, or just a section that interests you. In addition to our narrative, we also recorded Jean Parker Phifer reading excerpts from her book about Bryant Park and some of the sculptures found there and Richard Haas talking about some of the murals he has painted in the area.

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The New York City Public Library Flagpole bases, created in 1912 by Thomas Hastings and Rafael Manconi, have been called the most beautiful in the country.  Also on the New York Public Library lions, nicknamed Patience and Fortitude, are so emblematic of the Library that they have been trademarked. They have work graduation caps and have been featured in many movies. There is a similar pair of Lions in front of the Morgan Library that the sculptor also made. The adornments on the facade of the library are called one of the most noteworthy examples of Beaux Arts architectural sculpture in the country.    

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 Head towards Grand Central Station. There you will encounter the Hercules, Mercurius, and Minerva sculptural group atop the station. If you are following along on our art map this should be labeled 64. As you walk into the Main Concourse of Grand Central, the most notable feature is the great astronomical mural (56 on the art map), from a design by the French painter Paul Helleu, painted in gold leaf on cerulean blue oil. 

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Chase Manhattan Bank Building, designed by architect Gordon Bunschaft, features a 5-story glass wall along 5th avenue, unusual for the time period.  It celebrates the theme of transparency in modern banking, setting it apart from the dark, fortress-like bank buildings of the era.  

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Continuing east, the next building is the classical 1880's limestone General Society of Mechanic and Tradesmen Building. The Grand Central Academy of Art occupies a loft there. The Academy exhibits the cast collection of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Classical America, which was donated by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and is displayed in its loft studios. The collection includes over 200 nineteenth century casts of Antique and Renaissance sculpture.

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As Michael Murphy has tried to emphasize using local sources in his constructions, he very much wanted me to incorporate that premise into his cocktail. So I turned to New York Distilling’s Brooklyn-made rye to reboot a version of the old Liberal cocktail.

Robert Rogers, like every architect, wanted a martini. His edict was: “Let’s get together and talk gin!” So I took the abundant water present in his work as an invitation to, instead, do a gin highball, in fact my favorite one. In this version, you extract and incorporate the precious citrus oil in the lime’s skin, which, as Robert Frost wrote, makes all the difference.

Thomas Tarangioli Compilation

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