BBC news hour ran a segment this week about the Louvre Museum’s increasing entrance fees from €22 to €32 for non-members of the European Union starting yesterday–January 14. By comparison –and noted with pride–general admission to major ...
BBC news hour ran a segment this week about the Louvre Museum’s increasing entrance fees from €22 to €32 for non-members of the European Union starting yesterday–January 14. By comparison –and noted with pride–general admission to major museum permanent collections in England, Scotland, and Wales are free.
And what are museum charges in the U.S.? According to Google, they “vary greatly, from free entry (especially for Smithsonian museums in D.C.) to $5-$50+ for major metropolitan institutions, typically with tiered pricing for adults, seniors, students, and children, plus special fees for blockbuster exhibits; while many offer discounts or pay-what-you-wish for locals, general costs for popular museums often hover around $25-$35 for adults.” Google attributed this information to Wonderful Museums.
I last wrote about museum fees in NYC in 2011. At the time, the Met asked for $25. Now it charges $30 for adults; $22 for seniors (65 and over) and $17 for students. It’s free for members, patrons, and children 12 and under; $22 for visitors with a disability; free for a caregiver. New York State residents and students from New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut pay what they wish.
Admission to The American Museum of Natural History varies based on residency and age. Today, general Admission is $28 for adults; $22 for seniors (60+) and $16 for children (3-12). Fifteen years ago the museum asked for $16. Residents of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut can pay what they wish for general admission, which can be as low as $1.
The Intrepid Museum cost $24 before and now ranges from $36 to $40. Museum of the Moving Image cost $10 and today ranges from $10-$20.
“If you just find out what people …like to eat, you make them happy. And they think totally different when they’re happy.” — Leah Chase, Queen of Creole Cuisine, 2018.
I heard Mrs. Chase say this on the New Orleans segment of the Netflix series, “Somebody Feed Phil.” She was 94 at the time she was photographed at the stove stirring her iconic gumbo. Her restaurant, Dooky Chase, had been a gathering place for civil rights activists in the 1960s when it was illegal for black and white citizens to meet together.
She reminisced, “Tip O’Neal said ‘when we meet with Republicans we talk together,’ but now they’re not talking. They don’t talk about things. That’s what we do in New Orleans. We’d have a bowl of gumbo and change the whole world.”
Why did Mrs. Chase’s words strike a chord with me? Because I knew someone who believed the same about the value and importance of food that makes people happy, although I never heard her say so. I don’t know if she ever tasted gumbo, but like Mrs. Chase, she used food to make people feel welcome and even joyful.
My first memory of my mother in action was when my sister’s then boyfriend Marty came over. I was a kid and my sister probably in her teens. Mom always had at the ready his favorite: cherry pie and chocolate ice cream. Fast-forward decades to the first time my then boyfriend and future husband Homer came for dinner. She made him his favorite–floating island. Maybe that’s why they became close friends—I’ll never know.
I’m worried. Food doesn’t seem to be a priority with the current administration. According to Google when I asked if the president ate fast food even in the White House, I read, “Yes, Donald Trump does eat at [sic] McDonald’s in the White House. Reports indicate that he has a consistent fast-food routine, including ordering items like a Big Mac, Filet-O-Fish, and Quarter Pounder during campaign events and even in the White House. His preference for McDonald’s is rooted in a long-standing belief in the brand’s cleanliness and consistency, as well as a personal preference for fast food.”
So I guess we’ll have to wait for the next administration and hope that the winner of the top spot is a foodie if we are to put Mrs. Chase and mom’s philosophy to the test.
Do you believe in the power of breaking bread and the value of food to lubricate and assist relationships and conversation?
Some things seem just fine when a new broom enters the picture and feels it must sweep clean or an advisor justifies his/her existence by recommending a change for change’s sake and bam! Something that worked just fine no longer does.
By the way, I love change when it improves something. But this isn’t a post about accepting change. It covers things that no longer work.
Where have all the coat checks gone?
I’m lucky to have a winter jacket and coat but my coat is warmest and when we go through a cold spell it’s my outerwear of choice.
However, I hate to wear it when I go to a restaurant. Why? In NYC there are fewer coat checks and a puffy coat is cumbersome to sit on. A jacket slips on the back of a chair or takes up little space on a bench.
This situation may only be a consideration for folks who get to restaurants on public transport as it generally involves a lot of walking in all weather. Those with cars aren’t outside for long. A coat is a pain to wear in a car anyway.
So why don’t restaurants in NYC add hooks if not hangers for those with coats?
From 40 to 10 carrots
The food at 40 Carrots at Bloomingdales is pretty good—sometimes very good. When I went the other day I was surprised by the new layout. Instead of many tables sprinkled throughout the space there were fewer of them and each table is larger. The tabletop is of a higher grade.
We were eating when staff moved two tables together very near us to accommodate a large group—much too close. When one of the guests sat in her chair, her long hair missed my friend’s food by inches. This never happened before.
With fewer tables I predict longer lines between noon and 2:00 pm and unhappy regulars who will make other plans.
The trademark Forty Carrots disposable napkin [photo above] is gone in favor of a beige cloth one. I prefer the branded ones.
I give the improvements a 2 of 10 or in carrots, a 10 down from 40. My lunch was tasty or a one in both instances would be a more accurate assessment of my opinion of the layout change.
Don’t be in such a rush
Novocain hasn’t lost its impact after a long dental appointment when I get a “how did we do” text from the dental surgeon’s office asking for a number representing my opinion of the visit followed by a request for an online review. A friend had surgery, the stitches still smarted, and she’d not yet been to her follow-up visit when she received–and objected to–a similar survey.
These things are annoying anyway—how did you like your purchase of paper towel? Physicians should take a breath and wait to send out these surveys if they must.
Hold it
I don’t go to enough theater to identify a trend but within the last month a friend and I each went to a play and in both instances, there was no intermission and the audience was advised that if they left their seats they would not be allowed back.
Whose convenience is this for?
Some people are on medication or have conditions that demand frequent pit stops. Do they cross going to theater off their entertainment list?
Can you think of changes that haven’t improved things for customers?
I’ve written frequently about losing and finding things. What a cause for celebration when I find something important! This time I’d lost my keys for two days. I have alternate sets, but I love the little widgets, mostly gifts, that I’ve added to the keyring over years.
I spent, all-in, well over an hour on my hands and knees with a flashlight checking under furniture, in tote bags and silverware drawers, emptying my handbag several times, pulling apart my bed, layer by layer, digging in the pockets of my coats and jackets, taking down all the Christmas cards in case the keys were hiding behind one, to no avail.
I said: “Saint Antoine, grand filou, rendez ce qui est a nous.” [Saint Anthony, you old scoundrel, return what belongs to us.”]
Those keys had to be somewhere. I was inside the apartment and I don’t walk through doors. They weren’t in the lock in the hall outside. I’ve knocked on many a door to inform a fellow tenant that they’d left their keys outside.
In my bedroom is a hip-high piece of wood furniture that, I think, originally held a telephone and phone book in my parents’ Paris apartment. At my place it stores books. I also park clothes on it, tossing pants, sweatshirts and sweaters on the arc-shaped top. When the stack gets high enough to drive me crazy, I sort through it. On Saturday morning, there, on the floor on the wall side hidden from sight, were my precious keys. They must’ve fallen out of the pocket of pants that I had hurled on the stack.
My husband lost anything that wasn’t tied down from cash to gloves, hats to recording devices, bank checks to scarves so that while he was here, I didn’t notice misplacing things by comparison. He would be amused by me today. I think I misplace my reading glasses the most, my keys second. I have never found other lost beloved belongings though I keep an eye out.
How do you feel when you find a lost object? What tips do you have for finding things? What do you misplace most? Dare you admit what you’ve never found?
This is a story of two little girls who were trying to look like they were 15, huddled on the floor of an outdoor elevator at an upstate, N.Y. train station on December 26. They were dressed alike wearing goth attire that didn’t look sufficiently warm for the windy 20-degree day. Nothing but black tights covered their legs that were sticking out from under short black skirts. Their distinctive makeup was in keeping with their clothes. They were focused on their phones, squatting on black canvas bags.
I entered the elevator with an overnight suitcase and two giant TJ Maxx shopping bags that made me clumsy. I wondered at first about the safety of doing so but had committed to the ride and the thought of stairs with my encumbrances didn’t appeal. Had I been in Manhattan, seeing others in the elevator when the door opened who weren’t getting out, I’d have backed away.
As the elevator landed at the train’s platform level I fished into my handbag and pulled out a $10 that I handed to one of them and suggested they get themselves some hot chocolate. At Beacon station there is a small operation that I’m sure offers warm refreshment during this season.
They were surprised at first and when they smiled and thanked me, they looked close to 12 in spite of their dramatic makeup. “Be careful,” one said as I turned around my suitcase to exit and adjusted the bags on each shoulder. They weren’t poor waifs and they had exemplary manners. They seemed happy, even comfortable and content. They reminded me of the child actors in “The World of Henry Orient,” [1964].
I wish they’d have found a warmer place to roost but there wasn’t an alternative. The tiny, enclosed waiting area on the platform was jammed with passengers protected from the wind. It was a breeding ground for germs. As I waited for the southbound train a northbound one arrived. I don’t know which one would take them to their destination. They’d found an original place to wait nearly as creative as their costumes.
Do you imagine what people you meet along the way might be up to?
