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The Directory › The Americas › United States of America › New York
Plate V · i · b · The City

New York

Two houses I know by heart, and one uptown I have somehow never managed to reach.

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Upper East Side townhouse facades at dusk, limestone fronts and bare trees on an empty street
Plate V · i · b · The East Seventies, dusk

The best rooms in this city were built by men who wanted Europe, and are now, unhelpfully, better than most of Europe.

A day, properly arranged
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Both houses closed Mondays. Book the Frick ahead; it fills.

The entries

Three entries. Two visited, one still an admitted failing.
An empty library room at dusk with three tiers of dark wood shelving and a painted ceiling
Interior · a three-tiered library

Three storeys of books behind bronze grilles, and a ceiling that plainly thinks a great deal of itself. I have never once wanted to leave that room.

DECEMBER, LATE MORNING
Still on the list in New York
Not yet stood in. Kept here so I cannot quietly forget them.
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Notes for New York

The Frick and the Morgan are forty minutes apart on foot and make one very good day. Do the Frick first: it is the house, and the Morgan is the library, and that is the order the eye wants them in.

December is my season here. The Morgan is at its best when it is dark by four and the reading room lamps are doing the work.

Washington Heights is a subway ride and a decision, and I have failed to make it every single time. That is a failing of mine and not of the collection, and I am recording it here so it stops being invisible.

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