2007
the girl with the sun in her head
maura @ 8:33 pm
Last week I went on a field trip to the UN Library. Man, the UN buildings are so, so, so cool. I could just move right into the Woodrow Wilson Reading Room, with its swoopy wood-paneled ceiling and it’s incredibly gorgeous mod card catalog furniture for the old League of Nations cards. Plus they have a Chagall stained glass, of the beautiful bluish sort that the Art Institute also has. Of course I didn’t bring my camera, duh.
The buildings are scheduled to be renovated any minute now. I know it must be difficult to work in a ca. early 60s building: it’s much less energy-efficient, and probably things break a lot. But it would be such a shame if renovation = modernization because the whole place is just incredible. The promise of the future that we internalized from the 60s was flying cars and robot maids, and of course I’m still bitter about that. But it’ll all be okay as long as they don’t de-mod the UN.
While the UN renovates the library will move to a temporary location in Queens. I’m envisioning a library ferry traveling back and forth across the East River, bringing Ban Ki-moon all the books he could require!
What was also made abundantly clear to me during this visit is the extent of the waterfront development that’s going on in Queens and Brooklyn. My god, it’s just insane! I have already said this at least twice today (when discussing the huge ugly building going up down the block with some visiting former neighbors), but isn’t there a finite number of people in this city willing to pay a million dollars for a 2 bedroom condo? And if there isn’t, shouldn’t there be?
4 comments on “the girl with the sun in her head”
Har, that is excellent. I picked it initially because of Indiana Jones (I’m *sort* of kidding — I did for archy), but then it was good because: 1) pretty campus, 2) city, 3) just far away enough from my family. But yeah, Harper was so so so lovely.
Hey, we went to see Night at the Museum today! Gus was not scared, and is still asking questions.
I’m glad he wasn’t scared! The scariest thing was Mickey Rooney, who might be scarier for adults than children.
Ben went there for Indy, too! He came thiiiiis close to going to Michigan, thank goodness he didn’t. I hope I made a passable Karen Allen!
Fun fact: there is a Ravenswood Drive in Hyde Park. It’s a small street near the toaster apartments.
Extra fun: Karen Allen has a cool yarn site: http://www.karenallen-fiberarts.com/.
That yarn site is too much! J+I were scared of Mickey Rooney, what is he like a bazillion years old now? Gus thought it was hilarious that Mickey Rooney’s name in the movie was GUS!
Really, the reason I picked Chicago was because I saw a picture of the Harper library in a college catalog. I liked the chandelier. I didn’t know one thing else about the place, except that we drove by it on a science club trip and it looked like a castle.