An Evening at the Met, and Turkish Food on 3rd Avenue
August 14, 2010
Richard J. Garfunkel
After a day of sun, tennis and a swim, we headed back to Tarrytown for showers, a rest and a change of clothes. By five-thirty pm we picked up the Habers and the Schoens in Scarsdale and headed for Hutchinson River Parkway and made our way east and south to the Bronx River Parkway and the Bruckner Expressway which leads to the FDR Drive.
The traffic was exceeding light and in short order we were crossing 97th Street to Park Avenue where were quickly able to find a space at 82nd Street. We parked, and made our way over to the Metropolitan Museum which was incredibly crowded. We’ve been there many times on a late summer afternoon, but usually it much quieter. Not only was the venerable institution on 5th Avenue quite busy, but there were many more Americans there then we usually observe.
We first headed for roof top where I was pleasantly surprised and amazed by their incredible bamboo garden, which included winding steps that climbed at lease 3-4 stories above the roof top. We took a few pictures, enjoyed the remarkable sun drenched vistas of NYC Upper East Side and then headed down stairs to the American Women’s fashion display, which chronicled the changes in women’s clothing from the late 19th century to our current era.
After an interesting stroll through fashion history, which was highlighted by film strips of fashion trend setters; Greta Garbo, Jean Harlow, Marlene Dietrich, Anna May Wong, Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford and Katherine Hepburn we made our way to a special collection of all of the Met’s collection of Picasso’s works.
We spent a great deal of time perusing the Blue, Rose, and Cubism Periods, and by 8:00 PM we were all foot-weary and hungry. Bt the way, I wasn’t the only one who had played tennis. We had reservations at Beyoglu, a Turkish restaurant, located at 1431 3rd Avenue in the east 80’s. The restaurant was very crowed, but we were eventually seated upstairs, and after appetizers of hummus, falafel, a vegetarian platter, shepherd’s salads, we enjoyed our main dishes of: solom izgara, beyoglu sald, tarama, arnavut cigeria, and tavuk izgara. Our meal was topped off by baklava , rice pudding, expresso , tea and coffee. Every one felt satiated and the bill was $144, which was not bad for Manhattan. From there it was thankfully back to home.