Roosevelt Island

It was a sunny October day, and I went to Roosevelt Island, located in the middle of New York's East River, to see the Louis Kahn designed Roosevelt (FDR) Memorial. It was also a nostalgic trip for me, since we lived on Roosevelt Island in the 1980's, and I hadn't been there for quite some time.   The memorial was designed by Kahn in the 1970's for the southern tip of Roosevelt Island, and, given the slow pace of getting these kinds of things done in New York, was only completed a few years ago.

The memorial is nicely done, with straightforward lines,  culminating in a view to the river at the extreme southern point of the island.
 
(That almost looks like a statue of a man, but it is not..)

Looking north to the Queensboro Bridge (with French style rows of trees):

Manhattan seen from the memorial (you can't see the river):

The view towards the point:

Parts of the island are still in a wild, natural state, which makes a very nice juxtaposition with Manhattan being close by:

And tugboats and barges go by:

And there are even Gothic ruins:

Other parts of the island are residential, with high rise condo developments, green grass, parks, etc.,  far removed from the hectic and noisy streets of Manhattan.  It seemed familiar to me; suddenly, I realized it looked just like Vancouver!    But instead of mountains, you see this:

And you get to see what the Queensboro bridge looks like from underneath:

Madame Cezanne

There is a great show at the Met of paintings and drawings that Cezanne made of his wife.  
When we think of Cezanne, of course, we don't think of psychologically revealing portraits, and we certainly don't get that with his pictures of his wife.   Someone once said that he was more interested in her dresses than her face.  She was simply a subject for him, like a still life, I think.   The most striking part of the show is the row of four full size paintings he made of her in the same red dress.   (Apparently Cezanne once said, "Only I know how to do reds".)  

Here are they are:

Seeing all of the works together is a strange experience; in fact, her face looks different in every picture, and only in the sketches and drawings do we get a real sense of what she looked like.  We end up knowing very little about her.  

And I couldn't resist the fruit in the next room (detail of a watercolor):