NOVEL: All the Beauty in the World/ TOUR: The Met (NYC)

Details

Let's go to NYC for the day! Join Audrey at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, aka the Met for a Novel-Tourists-only guided tour! Before the tour we’ll stroll through Central Park and meet for lunch at TBD to discuss the paired book, All the Beauty in the World. This introspective memoir is about the author’s ten year stint as a museum guard at The Met and the NTBC Nonfiction November member choice winner!

For more books set in a museum, check out https://thenoveltourist.com/books-set-in-a-museum-2018-read-go-challenge/

TRANSPORTATION

For those who've bought the group tickets on Amtrak:

• There: 8:20am (arrive 9:45am) - 30th St Philly to NYC/Moynihan)
• Back: 7:53pm (arrive 9:15pm) - NYC to 30th St. Philly

For those going NJ Transit (Hamilton Station to NYC/Moynihan):

**FEE: ** $53 ($45 for 65+) covers museum admission and guided tour (transportation/food/etc is on your own)

HOW TO PAY: Use Friends and Family! Do not use the business option because it charges a fee (which you will need to cover). Please note the event name or date on your payment. If your payment name is different than your Meetup name, please make sure you note your Meetup name.
Venmo - @audrey-Heller1 (phone ends in 4478)
PayPal - https://www.paypal.me/AudreyBug

ITINERARY:

See Google Doc link you were sent.

TOUR: Metropolitan Museum of Art

We will enter the Museum via the Main Entrance at 82nd Street and 5th Avenue and check in at the Great Hall Groups Desk, located in the north east corner by the entrance to the Egyptian Art galleries.

We’ll have about an hour to explore on our own and have lunch before our 1:30pm tour.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met",
was founded on April 13, 1870, "to be located in the City of New York, for the purpose of establishing and maintaining in said city a Museum and library of art, of encouraging and developing the study of the fine arts, and the application of arts to manufacture and practical life, of advancing the general knowledge of kindred subjects, and, to that end, of furnishing popular instruction."

THE BOOK: All the Beauty in the World
Genre: Memoir

"The author of this book decided to step back from his job for a time after the untimely death of his brother. Instead, he applied for and was accepted as a museum guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I found his observations of the people and the art work that he experienced during his time at the Met very uplifting and felt that he confirmed the importance of great art to the spiritual well being of us all." - Review by Anne R
Millions of people climb the grand marble staircase to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art every year. But only a select few have unrestricted access to every nook and cranny. They’re the guards who roam unobtrusively in dark blue suits, keeping a watchful eye on the two million square foot treasure house. Caught up in his glamorous fledgling career at The New Yorker, Patrick Bringley never thought he’d be one of them. Then his older brother was diagnosed with fatal cancer and he found himself needing to escape the mundane clamor of daily life. So he quit The New Yorker and sought solace in the most beautiful place he knew.
To his surprise and the reader’s delight, this temporary refuge becomes Bringley’s home away from home for a decade.

We follow him as he guards delicate treasures from Egypt to Rome, strolls the labyrinths beneath the galleries, wears out nine pairs of company shoes, and marvels at the beautiful works in his care. Bringley enters the museum as a ghost, silent and almost invisible, but soon finds his voice and his tribe: the artworks and their creators and the lively subculture of museum guards—a gorgeous mosaic of artists, musicians, blue-collar stalwarts, immigrants, cutups, and dreamers.

As his bonds with his colleagues and the art grow, he comes to understand how fortunate he is to be walled off in this little world, and how much it resembles the best aspects of the larger world to which he gradually, gratefully returns.

See you at the Museum!

Housekeeping!
Here are the Club’s Basic Rules and Liability Release. You should read them because by signing up for an event you agree to them! 🙂

~ Audrey