Places Recommended in NYC

Instead of my usual month wrap up post of a hodgepodge of links I like over the course of the month, I thought I would shake things up by writing about some of the places that I have visited and enjoyed very much this spring break. The major and more obvious ones like the Met/MoMA/Guggenheim won't be mentioned here since they are well known on their own right. I hope this will be useful to anyone who plans to visit New York sometime in the near future.

MORGAN LIBRARY AND MUSEUM
225 Madison Avenue
Aside from the fact that both the Morgan Library and Museum are completely gorgeous and worth checking out to just see how beautiful the interiors are, the huge collection here is absolutely beautiful. Having visited the Frick, I thought I knew what to expect, but the museum and the library still managed to blow me away. Man, I knew J. P. Morgan was rich, but I didn't know omg-he-has-three-Gutenberg-bibles-and-other-first-edition-manuscripts rich. It's a different from knowing that he is worth billions and to see that he has a copy of Debussy's work in progress music score in the composer's own handwriting. If you are a bibliophile (like me), the rich collection here will be right up your alley.

ASIA SOCIETY
725 Park Avenue New York, NY 10021
I forgot to take a picture of the museum itself but here the magic is all on the inside. At the Asia Society, they have an ongoing exhibition on the late Mughal paintings that are utterly spectacular in their meticulous details and brushstrokes of the different works. The museum is rather small and only has two exhibits on at a time but this particular exhibit of Mughal art is so good, that I would say it is the most memorable out of the many I have seen all break long. I hope I am not the only one who thought it was hilarious to see an Englishmen in full traditional garb lounging around and smoking a hookah lazily.

BROOKLYN BOTANICAL GARDEN
725 Park Avenue New York, NY 10021
Everything is in bloom (or in the process of). The sun is out. The grass is green. People are lying about in the sun and taking the glorious weather in. What's not to like?

BROOKLYN MUSEUM
200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, NY
I totally underestimated the size of the size of this place – it is BIG. I didn't look at the type of collections they had inside before I went and therefore had no expectations of what things will be like inside. The quality and quantity of their Egyptian came as a pleasant surprise, and the rest of the museum collection was equally wonderful in their careful blend of the ancient and the old with the more contemporary works.

CAFE MINERVA
302 West 4th Street New York, NY 10014
Nice small café that serves simple brunch and great coffee. I totally dig the atmosphere and the French bistro feel of the interiors.

I hope you enjoyed the brief change of pace here – it's great since now I am eager to get back to writing about all things fashion and style, and I'm sure the more enthusiasm I have for it, the better the posts will turn out. I will update on week two of the 15-30 project sometime real soon as well. If you have any recommendations of some small and yet to be discovered places, please let me know so I can check them out the next time I'm in New York.