This week, we visited a few wonderful gems along the soon-to-be known as our Astoria and North Brooklyn Routes, suitable to explore on any given weekday or fall weekend! Whether you are exploring New York neighborhoods solo, with friends or family, these are some interactive and relaxing activities for people of all ages. So, what should you explore in these areas?
Noguchi Museum
Astoria
General admission: $10
Seniors (65+): $5
Students with a valid ID: $5
NYC public high school students with a valid ID: FREE
Children under 12: FREE
Members: FREE
We started off our (mostly) sunny week with the incredibly peaceful and ever-changing Noguchi Museum in Astoria, only a short walk from our future Astoria ferry landing. The museum is incredibly unique as it is partly indoors and partly outdoors, which means the sculptures of the museum will experience changes in lighting, smells, temperature, and overall feeling. Essentially, you can visit time and time again and never have the same experience!
The Noguchi museum’s multiple indoor and outdoor rooms are filled with incredible sculptures of all shapes, colors and sizes, showcasing Japanese-American artist’s outside-the-box creativity and artistic experimentation. Opened in 1985, the museum has gone through multiple changes, now allowing it to be open year-round. The museum’s highlight for our team, however, was the relaxing garden covered in trees and sculptures, as well as the sunlight shining through industrial size windows onto the diverse collection of Isamu Noguchi’s art.
The museum is a great place to visit, whether you are looking to push your boundaries as a photographer, learn more about art in one of the classes the passionate museum employees hosts, or a calm place to visit with your family. After your visit, make sure to stop by Arepas Grill for a taste of mouthwatering Venezuelan food!
If you are still hungry for some more art, the Socrates Sculpture Park is only a few minutes walk toward the waterfront from the Noguchi Museum. The park was founded in 1986, and is dedicated to provide local artists a chance to showcase their talents by creating exhibit-size installations in a unique outdoor exhibition space. Open from dusk until dawn, the park is a great place to embark on a walk by the waterfront while soaking up sun rays and enjoying forward thinking art pieces.
One of the park’s current installations, seemed to be a hit with children as they could use the letters of “More Light” to hide, climb and jump. Another installation, the Christopher Walken Mushrooms, is an art installation of a dozen of Walken’s heads planted like mega mushrooms. However, there was a big sign informing visitors that there should be “No Walken Picking!”
“The park’s existence is based on the belief that reclamation, revitalization and creative expression are essential to the survival, humanity and improvement of our urban environment.” – Socrates Sculpture Park
Christopher Walken “Mushrooms” in Socrates Sculpture Park
Rooftop Reds
Brooklyn Navy Yard
Check website for hours and rooftop season
A stone throw away from NYC Ferry’s future DUMBO stop, you will find the historic Brooklyn Navy Yard, currently booming and bustling with entrepreneurial businesses from distilleries and catering services to astronaut suit manufacturers. One of the notable new Brooklyn Navy Yard businesses is Rooftop Reds, the “world’s first commercially viable urban rooftop vineyard in New York City.”
With a 14,800 square foot rooftop space overlooking the East River, Brooklyn Bridge and most of Midtown Manhattan, the rooftop is sunny enough to run a viable vineyard, with views to entertain guests from early spring to late fall. Furthermore, the feeling of walking across a rooftop vineyard sipping a Rooftop Red wine while looking across the river at the night lights of the city that never sleeps, is quite hard to beat.
If you hurry, you can make it to the vineyard the last week of November, before the team closes the rooftop for the season.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BMzp7KxhbbL/?taken-by=citywideferry