Metropolitan Museum of Art - New York, NY
Posted by: bluesnote
N 40° 46.752 W 073° 57.773
18T E 587514 N 4514763
One of the most visited museums in New York City.
Waymark Code: WM13Z61
Location: New York, United States
Date Posted: 03/17/2021
Views: 5
The plaque says, "Founded in 1870, the museum originally opened at 681 Fifth Avenue, moved to 128 west 14th Street in 1873, and to this site in 1880. The first building in central park faced west and was designed by Arthur Tuckerman and Theodore Weston. In 1902, the Beaux Arts addition by Richard Morris Hunt, including the Great Hall, established the main entrance on with avenue. McKim, Mead & White added wings north and south between 1911 and 1926. In 1971, Kevin Roche/John Dinkeloo & Associated prepared a comprehensive plan, completed with six major additions between 1975 and 1989."
"To the right from the terrace across the green oval of the Lawn are the buildings of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (see page 368), and the Obelisk, quarried by Thothmes III in 1600 B.C. and brought to this country in 1880 with much difficulty: unloaded at Staten island it was towed on pontoons up the Hudson to Ninety-sixth Street and then in a great cradle it was rolled on cannon balls to the 'worst place within the city for getting an obelisk to.' The path that leads over billowing landscape to the neighborhood of the museum is the best approach to the Obelisk's two hundred tons of granite, whose hieroglyphics tell of Thothmes II, Rameses II, and Osarkon I. In 500 B.C. Cambyses, the Persian, overturned the monument, and in 12 B.C. Romans brought the shaft to Alexandria, and placed it before a temple. Although it is widely known as Cleopatra's Needle, the obelisk has no known historical connection with Cleopatra."
--- New York City, 1939
Book: New York City
Page Number(s) of Excerpt: 368
Year Originally Published: 1939
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