- Govenor Nelson A. Rockerfeller Empire State Plaza
It’s a decent day considering its been close to freezing the past five, so I decided to take a trip down to the Cultural education center also known as the New York State Museum. The five story building is comprised mostly of marble (like the majority of the rest of the Empire State Plaza) and stone. I’m just standing outside admiring tits architecture for a little while, and although it seems as it doesn’t really get attention it has almost a quiet 750,000 visitors a year.
Staring outside at the street I see a group of schoolchildren crossing the street. I walk down the stairs to Madison Ave and cross the street to the front of the museum. I sit on the benches outside and slowly observe the area, and as usual it’s rush hour there are about fifteen public city buses outside and as one leaves another pulls up at the end of the block. The smell of chili dogs fills the air and I see the vender in 50 feet away from me. I notice (just like any other weekday) men in business suits and the women in their skirts and blouses getting on some of the busses half of them live in some small suburb with less than 5,00 people, while the rest are waiting for whomever to come pick them up. So I decided to finally go inside to the museum, the guards at the desk greet me with a friendly “hello how are you doing today”? I respond fine and I begin to take a self guided tour of the museum, something I have never done before to be honest. I was always with a group or some sort of organization.
2nd-5th floors of the NYS Museum looking from the Plaza
before to be honest. I was always with a group or some sort of organization. I begin to walk in to the Metropolis section of the museum which is a dedication to the downstate area mainly New York City. There’s an actual train car from the 1960’s at the edge of the exhibit right next to the 9/11 area. On the wall in front of the train is a picture of what a train in the station actually looks like when it’s about to head into the tunnel. My first question is how in the hell did they get this thing in here. The train is sitting on tracks and everything with the platform included and a third rail
Any one want to take a ride uptown?
Inside in the fist half of the car is these real life wax figures (which sometimes scare me because they tend to “stare” at me). There is a figure of a motor man in the front with his head out of the window. Outside there is also an old turnstile(which I lost two quarter to when I was 12 years old thinking I was going too get it back)
I can damn sure use those two quaters!
I moved on to the 9/11 exhibit. There is nothing else that can probably explain the damage done that day better than this. Seeing a twisted steel beam said a lot to me. Just how vulnerable anything is when placed in the correct circumstances. They even had the remains of engine six on display as well (what was left of the truck I should say).
I then decided to move on to my last exhibit which was the Native American exhibit. There is a Long House with beds (which aren’t really meant be sat on but people do it anyway) and you can go inside and there is an actual set up of what their lives were possibly like it includes wax figures and all (once again they look as if they are staring at you). Once you walk in a story starts to play (which is kind of creepy as well) about the little family inside. When I laid on the bed and my first thought was this had to be the most uncomfortable part of their lives. They mind as well had slept on solid rock.
Then I finally get to have a chat with the guards before I leave. They tell me how in order to build the museum, as well as the plaza, 6,000 people had to be forced out of their homes. Picture in all that space that the plaza takes up as well as its ramps to the highway how many homes were there. Most people were forced out by eminent domain. I actually found out that on the site was one of the former schools that merged to make my high school today. The museum has so much to offer and to see and the best part of it that it was all free of charge. So whenever you want to go there it’s a ten minute bus ride. It was surely a history lesson for me that I will defiantly want to look more into.
By Chris Bryant
