Written by Laura O’Loughlin
On Friday, September 9, AWNY members gathered on the rooftop of the Metropolitan Museum of Art to revel in one of the last warm evenings of the season. With many Aussie and Kiwi women returning to the city at the end of the summer holidays, we were delighted to welcome a number of new faces in addition to the usual suspects.
The Met Rooftop Bar is one of the best places from which to view our adopted city, with views across Central Park to the West Side, and Downtown over the south end of the park to the city beyond. It is not open late; the café closes at 4:30pm Sunday through Thursday and at 8:15pm on Fridays and Saturdays. Entrance is included with your museum ticket, so wander through the first floor (getting lost midway is half the fun) until you reach the elevators at the rear of the museum. The vibe and dress-code is casual, with everyone from weary museum-goers to photography buffs to the after-work crowd drinking in the sunset and a limited but decent selection of cocktails. The early close makes it something of a destination spot and an absolute hit for out-of-town visitors.
“Transitional Object (PsychoBarn)” is the full title of the large-scale installation by British artist Cornelia Parker, currently on show atop the Met. Film aficionados will immediately recognize it as a scaled-down recreation of the Victorian Mansion from Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 thriller, “Psycho”. The rough cladding, salvaged from a red barn in Schoharie, N.Y. and peeling paintwork of the barn sit in stark contrast with the sleek marble and steel of the museum. Viewed in this setting, this symbol of rural life is both amusing and unsettling, a jolt of pop-culture and a melancholic reminder of days gone by.
The star of the Met Rooftop was still the view, treating us to a spectacular sunset as the late summer sun transformed the city skyline. “Transitional Object (PsychoBarn)” is on show until 31 October. Take a trip uptown before it, and the warm evenings, transition out.
Rooftop Pics
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