Tag Archives: Spanish Harlem

Jun 30, 2010 @ 7:30

By HarlemGal

I recently had the opportunity to experience the three C’s at the Museum of the City of New York located at 103rd and Fifth Avenue in Spanish Harlem. What do I mean by the three C’s? I am talking about Cars, Culture, and the City, the first exhibition to explore the Big Apple’s century-long relationship with the automobile. I was fortunate enough to see Cars, Culture, and The City at the beginning of the week (June 28), along with a one time special event at the Museum called Designing Women. (See slide show of the exhibit below!)

The special event was about how female designers at General Motors (GM) have had a critical impact on car design. Christine Park, one of the lead designers at GM, gave an in-depth demo on how they sketch at the company. It was very impressive to see Park sketch especially when she created an initial sketch of a car right before the audience’s eyes and then revealed what the final product looked like in real form. Pure talent comes to mind when thinking about Park. And it was interesting to see that talent; however, the actual exhibition at the Museum about cars and its connection to New York City was much more fascinating. Call me biased, but I am a New Yorker and I enjoy learning about the ‘Greatest City in the World!’

Cars, Culture and The City explains in visual detail how the automobile entered the Big Apple in the early 1900’s, the introduction of automobile shows, which are still in existence today in NYC I believe at the Javits Center, cars designed in New York, futuristic design, NY films and cars, and the car challenges of New York. There is so much to see and learn at this exhibit. I found the entire exhibit fascinating and it caused several ah-ha moments for me. My favorite portion of the exhibit was the compilation shown high up on a white wall of all the amazing movies that have featured New York City and the car. The looped video showed films and television, such as Solid Gold Cadillac, Midnight Cowboy, Taxi Driver, The Godfather, Vanilla Sky, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Seinfeld, Saturday Night Fever, When Harry Met Sally, and much more.

If you like history, cars, Hollywood films, sketching or would like to experience a museum on Museum Mile that is not crowded or expensive ($10 bucks a visit), then go see Cars, Culture and The City exhibit in Spanish Harlem at the Museum of the City of New York. It’s there until August 8!

Museum of the City of New York
1220 Fifth Avenue at 103rd St.
New York, NY 10029
212.534.1672