Tuesday, December 9, 2025 – ALL NATURAL MATERIALS REPLICATE STEEL AND CONCRETE

By admin

Guide to the

NYBG Holiday Train Show,

An Annual Love Letter to NYC

PART 2

Untapped New York

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2025

ISSUE #1588

New York as Museum City

The five boroughs house 83 museums, with the heaviest concentration on a one-mile stretch of Fifth Avenue on Manhattan’s East Side. The Metropolitan Museum stands at 80th Street, hugging Central Park, from which it has taken substantial property over the years. The NYBG points out that the replica uses cinnamon curls to recall the Met’s Ionic columns.

(Left) Classic New York row houses, some demolished (Right) The elegant National Arts Club is located at 15 Gramercy Park South.

The Frick Collection, a favorite with New Yorkers and especially European tourists, stands ten blocks away from the Met at Fifth Avenue and 70th Street. “The Met is admired, but the Frick is beloved,” says architecture critic Paul Goldberger, comparing New York City’s largest and wealthiest museum with its reserved Fifth Avenue neighbor, which recently reopened after years of renovation.

“Are those mushrooms, daddy?” asked the little boy to my left. Yes, indeed, the Guggenheim has been recreated with shelf fungus. “I think Frank Lloyd Wright would approve,” says Dolan, referring to the Guggenheim’s famously irascible architect. The Guggenheim is both a New York City landmark and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, a private college founded by Peter Cooper in 1859, was tuition-free for most of its history. Its alumnae include renowned architects, engineers, and artists, such as Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Milton Glaser, Lee Krasner, and Thomas Edison. Appropriately enough for the train show, Cooper was an industrialist who designed and built the first American steam locomotive.

Similarly, the replica of Grand Central has columns of sticks, stone walls mimicking limestone, huge rounded windows, and three detailed statues of Hercules, Mercury, and Minerva, representing strength, commerce, and wisdom.

MORE IMAGES TOMORROW…

HANSA AND DORIS DISPLAY LOVELY HOLIDAY ART  AT THE CARTER BURDEN OLDER ADULT CENTER.

PHOTO OF THE DAY

HOW WAS DAY ONE ON THE NEW
COMMUTE 
ON THE M TRAIN?

CREDITS

UNTAPPED NEW YORK

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