finally

a day at the beach on this thing we call summer vacation

modern art for a day

I spent the day at MoMA recently and looked at the works of Picasso, Pollock, Van Gogh, Warhol, Jasper Johns, Kandinsky, and Matisse.  All of these pieces are part of The Collection.  

Also some pieces from the Shaping Modernity: Design 1880 - 1980. This exhibit was composed of a variety of interesting things from a Vespa, to a bubble chair, to lighting fixtures, to an antique car.  

an interesting perspective

check out the rest of the photos

my kind of brooklyn

My father makes trips every few weeks into Brooklyn to see my Aunt Mary.  Usually I am working, so I cannot go with him.  Fortunately, summer vacation has opened up the opportunities for day time adventures that always involve eating.  Before getting me, he picked up Aunt Libby in the Bronx whose sons own a bread bakery.  Their bread can be found in Westchester restaurants and grocery stores. These are the same loaves of bread that my brother and I would eat in the grocery store as any good little Italian children would while my mother shopped. She had to embarrassingly give the cashier the empty bread bag in order to pay for it. 

some treasures from brooklyn

The journey to Brooklyn involved a trip to Coluccio's on 60th Street, a grocery store known for their cheeses, pastas, breads and all things Italian. Now Coluccio's has ravioli, but they aren't the best.  I was introduced to another gem....Pastosa's on New Utrecht Avenue...known to have the superior Ravioli. 

18 count box of love

breadsticks from the bakery

Once at Aunt Mary's, we had a delicious lunch coupled with desserts, watermelon and iced espresso over conversations in Italian.  I climbed the fig trees to find any ripe ones.  I picked string beans, fresh basil and mint.  All in all....a lovely day for family, food, and an adventure.

a worldly a-fair

In 1851, the world held it's first fair in London.  The purpose of this fair was to exchange cultural ideas, brand a nation, display technological advances, and promote tourism.  World's Fairs have delivered us such prominent city structures as Paris' Eiffel Tower (1889) and Seattle's Space Needle (1962).  New York City hosted the World's Fair in 1939 and 1964-65 in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, home to the Unisphere. I decided to spend an afternoon checking out this park and what remained of the World's Fair.  Much of the land is now used for recreational soccer fields, the USTA National Tennis Center, and the fountains that were once filled with water entertained skateboarders doing tricks. I spent the rest of my afternoon under a tree with sounds of laughing children in the distance, all while having Lunch in Paris.

unisphere: dedicated to man's aspirations toward peace through mutual understanding and symbolizing his achievements in an expanding universe - united states steel corp (1964)

standing 140 feet tall, weighing 700,000 pounds

the 1964 time capsule, 50 feet underground

my ride

dali's funhouse - dream of venus

mister softee has gone global