Kykuit – The Rockefeller Estate

Sleepy Hollow, NY
Hudson River Valley

I love highbrow 19^th-century and early 20^th-century homes. Something about the glory of the fin-de-siècle and Belle Époche tempered by late-Victorian sensibilities and good taste not entirely corrupted by the nouveau riche. A little dash of Art Nouveau and Arts and Crafts never hurts, either. The problem with earlier residences from the 18^th century is one always runs the risk of encountering too much Rococo silliness or Baroque drama.

I also quite enjoy getting out of the city from time to time. There’s no end to the arts in NYC, but sometimes the period rooms at the Met or even a visit to the Frick can’t cut it. Sometimes you want to see the real deal. Times like that call for a $10 hour-long train ride on Metro North or the LIRR. The Hudson River Valley and Long Island are resplendent with fabulous homes built by the wealthy of yesteryear—Theodore Roosevelt’s manly Sagamore Hill, William Vanderbilt’s mansion, Washington Irving’s Sunnyside. But for my first foray into opulent mansion-gazing, I headed straight for the mother load: John D. Rockefeller’s Kykuit.

When Rockefeller built Kykuit for his family in 1913 he was the richest man in the world. Yet Kykuit is a surprisingly modest manor home, verging even on small. There is nothing small about the estate itself, however, which occupies over 3000 acres of Pocantico Hills near Sleepy Hollow and includes a reversible nine-hole golf course. Downton Abby this is not. Ten Rockefeller families still live within the large estate, but upon his death in 1979 Nelson Rockefeller bequeathed Kykuit and its surrounding 250 acres of garden (referred to by the family as “the park”) to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, opening the manor to public tours.

Kykuit is fiercely guarded by the National Trust. Visitors cannot simply show up to the home and browse through the home and gardens; admission is by scheduled tours only, and even then visitors must buy their tickets at the center at Philipsburg Manor some three miles away and then be bussed to and from Kykuit for their tour.

I decided to go all-out and go on the three-hour Grand Tour. The Trust also offers several different two-hour tours, but the Grand Tour was the one to take to see “absolutely everything.” I also opted for the morning tour over the afternoon tour, thinking correctly that the earlier group would be smaller. Between the two of us, my domestic partner and I possess a fairly encyclopedic art historical knowledge. We usually avoid guided tours, but as this wasn’t an option at Kykuit, we thought at least we could try to avoid a large group of people which almost always contains that one guy who doesn’t know anything and asks way too many questions. Or, worse, that guy who knows a little bit but thinks he knows a lot and really really wants to share. Our strategy worked out—it was just us and two other couples. Aside from one man who spent the entire tour jingling the loose change in his pocket, we were a docile crew.

Kykuit is a grey stone Classical Revival Georgian mansion surrounded by a sumptuous French Beaux-Arts park that includes a Japanese garden and teahouse, a Greek temple, and Italianate fountains, grottos, coach house, and loggia. New York was originally settled by a large number of Dutch traders and the word “kykuit” is Afrikaans for “lookout.” On a clear day, visitors can see the Palisades and Tappan Zee.

Our guide was a sprightly sexagenarian who often left the older ladies on the tour struggling to keep up—they apparently didn’t heed the website’s warning that the Grand Tour is not wheelchair accessible and, as such, would include a good deal of stairs. While her knowledge of art and design history was a bit lacking, she was a wealth of Rockefeller information. John D. Rockefeller was one of America’s infamous rag-to-riches stories. He was a serious, religious man who didn’t let his children know they were wealthy for fear it would hinder their moral development. His son, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., knew such subterfuge would not be possible with his own children, and instead opted for imparting the value of money and importance of charity. The children of Rockefeller, Jr. had to earn their weekly allowance and had to make weekly accounts of it—one-third went to savings, one-third could be spent as they wished, and one-third was given away to the poor. It’s this spirit of philanthropy that led millions of Rockefeller dollars to support medical research, black universities, and arts institutions. Imagine if all millionaires and billionaires raised their children in such a manner!

No matter what one’s level of art knowledge, there is something for everyone at Kykuit. Rockefeller was a huge collector of Chinese ceramics—the foyer is flanked by two magnificent Tang Dynasty horses, the likes most art museums could never dream to afford—while his daughter-in-law, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, was one of the key founders of the Museum of Modern Art. Abby’s son, Nelson Rockefeller, went on to collect major works of Modern art and sculpture; Nelson even commissioned Picasso to execute some of his most famous works as tapestries so the family would have easily transportable Picassos!

From the very beginning, John D. Rockefeller raised his children to appreciate art as something that was both beautiful and that served a purpose. His children took turns picking which China set guests would be served on, and Nelson’s children had their own display case of glass bottles they had found on the estate. Even visitors who couldn’t care less for Asian or Modern art will be struck by the beauty of the gardens or the home itself. And, if those fail to impress, there’s always the antique cars and carriages in the coach house. The collection includes a Ford Model S, the precursor to the Model T! The coach house also contained apartments for the gardeners and mechanics who worked for the estate. The Rockefeller’s were notoriously generous employers, so much so that the grandson of one of the original gardeners still works for the estate.

After two hours of winding our way through the home and gardens, our guide was clearly short on things left to show us. To try to make up the entire three hours we often doubled back and took the long way around to various sites, often seeing things more than once. It became apparent that two hours is more than sufficient to show off the home and gardens. When we saw a few of the larger two-hour tour groups, however, laden with loud tweens and teens, we were infinitely grateful that we had spent more for the longer tour. Kykuit does not offer student or senior citizen discounts, and it seems amazing that parents would cough up $25 a head to take their children on a two-hour tour of a house, but it happens. While Kykuit can’t actually justify a three-hour tour, it seems worth the extra $15 to avoid said children as apparently a $40 three-hour tour is more than even the most generous parent is willing to provide (or put up with). It also helps to take a morning tour, as few parents are able to rally their troops at 6am to get the visitor’s center in time for anything before late-morning or early-afternoon. Also, many of the rooms and spaces were quite small—at times it felt crowded with even our small group—so I can’t imagine how cumbersome a group of eighteen would be.

A visit to Kykuit is not for the weak of heart. While the train ride is short and affordable, there’s still the subway ride to Grand Central and walk to the Visitor’s Center to take into account. It may be best to opt for a two-hour tour, but I definitely recommend getting up early for a morning tour in order to avoid a large group. Be sure to book your tickets in advance, though, as they sell out rather quickly.

https://www.hudsonvalley.org/historic-sites/kykuit

Lunch Hour NYC

New York Public Library
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building

Fifth Avenue at 42^nd Street

I recently found myself at Bryant Park with three hours to kill. I had just finished attending a book club discussion of Edith Wharton’s House of Mirth hosted by the Bryant Park Reading Room and led by Suzzy Roche of The Roches. I would later be meeting up with a Spanish language group. I am between jobs, so I needed somewhere cheap, preferably free, to spend some time.

My frugal feet led me the Stephen A. Schwarzman branch of the New York Public Library, generally known as the “main” branch of the extensive library system. The building is hardly obscure—a gorgeous Beaux-Arts building flanked by its famous lions, Patience and Fortitude—but because it is a research library rather than a lending library, and because a tedious bag search hinders traffic in and out of its single revolving-door entryway, most people tend to view the Schwarzman Building from the outside. Intrepid tourists who brave the queue at the door are rewarded with even more stunning Beaux-Art design inside, including luscious dark wood paneling hidden in the Periodicals Room on the first floor.

Few people realize, however, that the Library offers free exhibitions and guided tours. The latter can be horrid or wonderful, depending on who the guide is. I once took a group of high school girls on one of the tours and they were so traumatized by the rude woman leading the charge I think the poor things will never enter another library as long as they live. I have, however, seen tour groups smiling and laughing in the McGraw Rotunda, so the guides can’t all be terrors.

I had no real interest in visiting the exhibition Lunch Hour NYC currently on display in the Library’s Gottesman Exhibition Hall on the first floor, but I had some time on my hands and thought, “Why not?” Imagine my surprise when I ended up staying at the exhibition for almost two hours! It really is that well done.

I’ve visited previous exhibition at the Schwarzman Building and have found that the Library’s exhibitions struggle with being informative without being overly pedantic. Lunch Hour NYC manages to strike just the right chord between smart and fun. Etymologists will be tickled by the development of the word “lunch” (it comes from the Spanish “lonja” meaning “a thick piece,” or “chunk,” and was initially characterized as a snack taken anytime during the day, generally in the form of “as much food as one’s hand can hold”) while nerds of all ages will be enamored of the Library’s lunch box collection.

The real star of the show, however, is the huge Automat display. The Automat was a New York institution that began with a bang in 1912 and ended with a fizzle in 1991. An automat-style place briefly opened on St. Mark’s in the East Village a few years ago, and as someone who completely missed out on the Automat culture I really wanted it to be successful, but this business quickly went the way of the original Automats; I guess the owners should have considered that if the kings of the original Automat, Joe Horn and Frank Hardart, couldn’t make it work into today’s society, no one would be able to.

Nearly a quarter of the exhibition space is dedicated to the glorious Automat. There’s film clips from classic movies and television programs featuring the Automat (thoughtfully subtitled so the sound doesn’t interfere with other parts of the exhibition), touching stories of immigration and civil rights (because Automat employees remained hidden from view, Horn and Hardart could high people of color without fear of alienating their cliental), and, best of all, a great big Automat with knobs you can turn and doors you can open! Granted, there is no food inside the pristine steel boxes, but there are some pretty delicious looking recipes on cards visitors are free to take.

Other exhibition highlights include the rise of dieting culture in American housewives, the positive effects of the first public school food programs (poor children’s academic performance improved as their weight increased), and the development of the business power lunch. In a time when most people had to rush to eat in under thirty minutes, taking a leisurely long lunch meeting was a display of one’s weight. Particularly fun is the display discussing the development of the Round Table at the Algonquin, the effects of which can still be felt in the pages of the New Yorker today.

Along with tactile displays and short, informative didactics, the exhibition is strewn with photographs by Berenice Abbott and Alice Austen, caricatures drawn by Alex Gard for Sardi’s celebrity display, and fabulous illustrations of 19th-century lunch rooms. The exhibition does go a bit far in claiming New York City was responsible for developing the idea of lunch as we now know it today, but New Yorkers love claiming responsibility for whatever we can.

Lunch Hour NYC is up until February 17^th, 2013, and is open during library hours. Tours of the exhibition are available at 12:30 and 2:30 Monday through Saturday, and 3:30 on Sundays. Tours of the Library itself are available 11am and 2pm Monday through Saturday and 2pm on Sundays. Neither the exhibition nor the Library, however, require tours to be appreciated.

http://exhibitions.nypl.org/lunchhour/exhibits/show/lunchhour

Alice Austen House Museum

Shore Acres
Staten Island

I had been trying to drag my boyfriend to visit the Alice Austen House Museum, a.k.a. Clear Comfort, in Staten Island for months. Finally, I had the excuse of my impending birthday to get him to do whatever I wanted. Alice Austen (1866 - 1952) was an early American photographer, and, as she began photographing at the age of ten, she was also one of America’s youngest. My areas of art historical focus while earning my Master’s at Pratt Institute were photography and women artists, so naturally I was fascinated by this relatively new museum at Staten Island. I even tried to get an internship there during my graduate studies, but, alas, it was snatched up by another Pratt grad student.

I’d like to think that it was anticipation that led to my disappointment of the Austen House, but it wasn’t; unfortunately, it was the Museum itself.

The Alice Austen House Museum has so much potential to be amazing that its actuality is a great letdown. The tour of the home begins with a 22-minute PBS documentary called “Alice’s World” that seems to have been made in the 1980s and is most definitely worse for wear. Though not a comment on Austen’s work or the video, while watching the documentary both my boyfriend and I got mysterious insect bites on one finger each. This may also have colored the rest of the visit.

After watching the video—which, by the way, completely side-steps the fact that Austen was a lesbian and instead repeatedly alludes to the fact that she “never married.” In fact, try as one might, it seems to be impossible to find the words “Alice Austen” and “lesbian,” “gay,” or “homosexual” in the same sentence. The guide, the Museum’s didactics, her Wikipedia entry, gently refer to her life-long partner Gertrude Tate as her “friend” or her “companion.” The House’s website does go so far as to call them a “couple” and refer to Austen’s family as being concerned over Austen’s “devotion” to Tate, but it’s all very Victorian and demure. It seems a pity that an organization in desperate need of tourist dollars should seem to go out of its way to avoid attracting LGBT visitors. The queer community is nothing if not supportive of its own and if the Alice Austen House could stop being so delicate, it might be able to afford some better displays. Speaking of which, back to my initial thought.

After watching the video, a well-meaning woman (the House is run by a volunteer group called the Friends of Alice Austen) gave us a “tour” of the home. Said tour consisted of her pointing to a cluttered grouping of poorly-lit 5”x7” prints of Austen’s family and friends and saying, “That’s Alice’s friend so-and-so, and that’s Alice’s Uncle so-and-so, and that’s…” We then went into the restored living room, where the guide proceeded to point out whatever original furniture and decorations the Museum had managed to locate and have returned to or loaned to the exhibition. The rest of the Museum consists of a restored dining room (largely ignored by the guide though it appeared to contain a large portrait painting of Austen), two empty rooms painted white which hold rotating exhibitions by contemporary photographers, and a third white room with stacks of photography magazines and binders containing unlabeled, mediocre 8”x10” prints of Austen’s work. As of yet, the second floor is closed to visitors.

That, right now, is what the Alice Austen House Museum is. This is what I want it to be:

Austen’s original camera, a bulky dry-plate wooden box with tripod and bellows presented to her by a Danish sea captain uncle Oswald Müller, has been lost, and a similar camera along with some glass plates sit on a table behind a railing in the restored living room, far from where anyone can appreciate them. A room—or at the very least, a wall—needs to be dedicated to her early photographic processes. A glass plate lying on a table is not going excite anyone, especially in an era where few people use film, and younger generations don’t even know what it is. How amazing would it be to have a replica camera that visitors could touch and manipulate? To see how cumbersome it actually was to operate? And a glass plate lying on a table! Hang that up with some backlighting. Let visitors actually see the negatives—their size, their tonalities.

The Victorian family picture display in ornate frames cluttered on a wall of dark fabric doesn’t bother me. It has an authentic flavor. However, the foyer of the House has three of them, which is two too many. People don’t care about looking at family photographs of other people’s families, even if they were taken by a 19^th-century lesbian. Also inside the foyer is a display case filled with books published with Austen’s work, including an 1896 guide Bicycling for Ladies and a 1950s publication of early women photographers Revolt of Women. There are, however, no display copies or facsimiles out for the public to peruse. In the 1950s, after she was rediscovered, her work was published in Life and Holiday magazines. It would be wonderful to be able to flip through those rather than the stack of dated photography magazines in the “research” room.

The exhibition on display when I visited was quite timely, Foreclosed: Documents from the American Housing Crisis. It was also apropos as Austen had lost her home in 1945 after mortgaging it several times after she lost almost everything in the Crash of 1929. She and Tate also attempted various failed business ventures (including etiquette classes for children!) in an effort to maintain the house. The exhibition was well-done, especially as some images of Austen taken by Alfred Eisenstaedt were woven into the display. After the sale of her photographs in 1950 and 1951 saved her from dying in the poor house (literally—Austen was living at the Staten Island Farm Colony; Tate’s family took her in, but refused to admit her lover), Austen returned for a final visit to Clear Comfort before ending her days in a comfortable nursing home paid for by the late sales of her work.

However, the relative professionalism of the rotating exhibition only makes the poor display of Austen’s work more obvious. The Staten Island Historical Society owns Austen’s 3500 original glass negatives and has made many lovely large prints of them—some originally to show to Austen to get descriptive information. The video and guide harp on how cutting edge and proficient Austen was, yet the images the Museum has chosen to display do not demonstrate this skill. Many of them are boring and poorly printed. The most interesting images done by Austen can be found on the Museum’s website, not on the House’s walls. The best prints in the House are actually in the two bathrooms. So be sure to check those out. They’re also the largest; perhaps those were donated by the Staten Island Historical Society?

I got the distinct sense that there was a bit of animosity between the Friends of Alice Austen and the Staten Island Historical Society. Whatever the reason for their tensions, the Friends need to find a way to work with the Historical Society to get more well-printed, interesting images on the walls of the Austen House. And, while they’re at it, maybe not leave the best ones they have right now in the bathrooms. A photograph of a pretzel vendor taken by Alice Austen is part of an exhibition at the New York Public Library on 42^nd Street (review to follow shortly); it’s a little small and a little dark, but it captures of magic of street life in New York City at the turn of the century. There are too few of such images on display at the actual Alice Austen House Museum.

To improve visitor experiences the Friends of Alice Austen might consider the following:

Apply for some much-needed LGBT grant monies and use said funds to renovate and open the second floor which will free up space for a full-room interactive display of early photography equipment and techniques.

Make nice with the Staten Island Historical society to fill that second floor with examples of Austen’s work that better illustrate her skill.

Pay an exterminator to get rid of those damn bugs.

Toss out the dusty photography magazines and binders of sad little gray prints and replace them with browsing copies of Austen’s published works.

Just maybe then the Alice Austen House Museum will become a destination worth the journey to Staten Island. 

http://aliceausten.org/