{"id":7260,"date":"2007-11-18T13:44:01","date_gmt":"2007-11-18T18:44:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=7260"},"modified":"2013-11-11T10:15:40","modified_gmt":"2013-11-11T15:15:40","slug":"lafayette","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=7260","title":{"rendered":"Lafayette Exhibit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, Allison, Tim and I went to the New York Historical Society. I was particularly moved by the Lafayette exhibit <\/a>they have going on now – and it’s going to be there until 2008 so I HIGHLY recommend it to anyone in the area, or anyone who plans on visiting New York. Wonderful stuff: relics of his triumphant return to America, his grand tour in 1824 – mugs imprinted with his face, ladies gloves with his face on them in a little imprint – handkerchiefs, invitations to balls – everything in honor of him. Portraits of him, snippets of his writing, etc. etc. Great stuff.<\/p>\n

I also had a lovely time walking through the grand gallery on the 2nd floor where there is a marvelous exhibit of American painters of the Hudson River school<\/a>. Soft green walls, vaulted high ceiling – and MASSIVE paintings. Very interesting stuff.<\/p>\n

Oh, and one last thing: on the weekends, the NY Historical Society has what they call “Living History Days”, where people dressed up in Revolutionary Era clothes mingle with the hoi polloi. They answer questions, they do demonstrations with their weapons, they cross-stitch little hankies and talk to children, and generally behave like history geeks. When we were there, we got to mingle with Lafayette (who, of course, had a mellifluous French accent) – I had a nice chat with him about the terror in Revolutionary France and how he fared – I exchanged a shy smile with Ben Franklin but was too timid to speak to him, and I cowered in awe and fear of the towering George Washington. I also caught one of the little Revolutionary ladies in her bonnet and apron chatting on her cell phone behind a column telling whomever was on the other end, “I’ll be outta here by 6 … wanna grab some Thai food later?” Hysterical. There’s a 9\/11 exhibit going on as well (the photo exhibit which makes up the book Here is New York<\/em><\/a> – I’m sure you’ve heard of it – I own it, it’s a prized possession of mine) – and there are two huge lit-up rooms filled with the photo prints from the book. It has a distinctly modern vibe, with fluorescent lights, etc. – unlike the Lafayette exhibit which feels like you are stepping back in time. I wasn’t into the 9\/11 exhibit, didn’t feel like going in there – but I did glance in once – and the room full of photos was empty, except for one solitary figure. A British soldier from the time of the American Revolution, a true “lobsterback”, with his rifle at his side, his red coat ablaze in the fluorescent lights, stood and browsed through the photos. All by himself. I took a picture of him from afar. I loved the incongruity of it, it seemed quite beautiful. It’s why the NY Historical Society is one of my favorite organizations in the city, because you see stuff like that all the time.<\/p>\n

If you have kids – “living history days” would be a great thing, I think. There were little kids talking with Washington, asking him questions with total belief – he WAS who he said he was, etc. And the actors, or re-enactors, were all wonderful. Great fun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, Allison, Tim and I went to the New York Historical Society. I was particularly moved by the Lafayette exhibit they have going on now – and it’s going to be there until 2008 so I HIGHLY recommend it to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[2206,1496,161],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7260"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7260"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72425,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7260\/revisions\/72425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}