Seeking Out Art Up North

Very recently I spent a few days in Chicago and a few days in New York City, visiting with old friends and exploring some of the cultural gems we are so lucky to have within our grasps here in the US!  Let me say that I would not trade living in the South for anything, though it was fun to explore up North.  My husband and I took the trip as an anniversary gift to ourselves and are now utterly exhausted after our travels.  My heart is overflowing with all of the artwork fresh in my mind, classics that I have now seen in person and can hopefully share stories to my students without getting too emotional!  Chicago and New York City are both rich with galleries and museums, but there is also something grand to say about their architecture, public sculptures and street art as well.. it's pretty unrealistic, but I do wish I could take my students on this HUGE field trip!!    

 While I will inevitably leave something out and will save restaurant reviews for another post (Hint: Every meal was sooooooo good), below is a quick list of spots and sites we ventured;

Chicago:  Art Institute of Chicago, Cloud Gate aka. The Bean and all the beauty in Millennium Park,  Buckingham Fountain and other goodies within Grant Park (by the way, we also got to join the masses and check out the USA/Portugal World Cup simulcast on the big screen!), water taxi sight-seeing down the Chicago River (less expensive than the architecture tour and man oh man were the sites and the architecture just as spectacular, for a fraction of the tour cost), Green Fest (art/street festival recommended by our Chicago friends), shopping and gallery visits along the Magnificent Mile, and a Cubs/Reds baseball game at Wrigley Field.

New York:  MoMA, Central Park and all the many wonderful sculptures within, Times Square, Rockefeller Center, Grand Central Station, 9-11 Ground Zero Memorial, boat tour around the island of Manhattan (we opted to pay the full ticket price for this tour, as the water taxi was just about the same price as the tour), NY Stock Exchange, FAO Schwartz, church service at the historic Trinity Episcopal Church, and infinite strolls through charming neighborhoods and island districts.