New York City–June 5, 2022

My original plan for the day was to go to Coney Island, but I decided that if I wanted a beach experience I could go to Santa Cruz, so I decided to go way uptown and walk down towards Times Square. I got to 59th Street (Columbus Circle), when the subway car’s electronic display just went dead. I decided to get out and start walking uptown on Columbus Avenue. There was really not much to look at there; just a very gentrified area. There were, however, a couple of interesting stickers and a bench:

I got up to about 86th Street and decided I really didn’t want to walk another 40 blocks, so I looked at the map and saw that the American Museum of Natural History was on 81st and Central Park West (which was fairly close by), so that’s where I went instead.

The first few rooms after the entrance were dioramas, which did absolutely nothing for me. Also, the lighting on the room with the elephants was really dim. Why? Elephants aren’t nocturnal, and these are not living animals, so the light isn’t exactly going to bother them. Go figure.

I was thoroughly bored with this, and headed up to see the dinosaur exhibit, which was much better:

Imagine how awful it would have been if they had included archosaurs...

Turns out the display was funded by the late David H. Koch, who also spent a lot of money on right-wing causes and fought against any action on climate change.

The highlight for me was the Allison and Roberto Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals.

I went to the subway stop just outside the museum, and saw this mosaic:

And this series of stickers on the ceiling beams in a passageway connecting two of the subway lines:

I exited the subway somewhere in lower Manhattan, and saw this:

And this bus, which is called a “Mitzvah Tank.” The old guy in the photo appears to be Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who seems to have been quite a character. He also seems to have had a cult of personality about him and some people thought he was the Moshiach (messiah); one of the Hebrew sayings on the bus was “Long live our Lord, our Master, and our Rabbi, the King Messiah forever.”