Thursday, October 13, 2005
Today I took the day off of work to visit the member's only preview of the brand new de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park opening this Saturday. I took bus 44 to Fulton. I arrived around noon and spent about 15 frustrating minutes trying to figure out how to get inside. The construction around the museum is not yet finished, so there are temporary fences, construction workers, and construction equipment all over the place. No signs direct visitors toward the entrance. I ran into other people who were also looking for the way in. We found a man in a suit with a walkie talkie and he pointed in a direction and said the entrance was that way. We walked for several minutes that way and found another man in a suit with a sheriff's badge who said that we could not get in this way. The elderly woman I was wandering around said she was a donor and she was a lot more frustrated than I was with the lack of organization. The correct directions to get in on foot are: As you walk in the park from Fulton (going south), turn right (west) at the T intersection (Kennedy) and then turn left (south) at the crosswalk a few hundred feet ahead. After crossing the street (Kennedy), turn left (east), navigating around the multiple temporary chain link fences. Follow the main drive right (south) to find the front of the museum and the main entrance where you can get in. I actually snuck through the fences through a construction zone to shortcut to the education entrance, but most of the time I think there's someone watching and you cannot go through that way. The wrong thing to do is to head west on Kennedy—you cannot get in that way. If you see a loading dock, that's a staff-only entrance and there's no way in there. As I approached, I took a few photos of the building's exterior. It's magnificent and grand with a skin of copper that is smooth in some places, embossed in other places, and punched with circles in other places. Strips of floor-to-ceiling glass windows provide views to the interior. The entrance leads into a pleasantly irregularly shaped courtyard with several large slabs of stone at just the right height for sitting. Laser-thin cuts divide the stone pieces as well as the floor upon which they sit. Once I got in, I got my ticket at the ticket counter on the right. Next I had a lot of trouble finding the coat check. The man who issued my ticket pointed across the room and said (I think) "down to the left." I wandered in that direction and found no signs leading me to the coat check. Along the way, a woman greeting people at the entrance told me that I could not carry my bag on my back and that I would have to check it in. I told her that was fine and continued to look for the coat check. I wandered around on the concourse level looking for the coat check a long time and eventually found a small window counter which said Coat Check but the window was closed. I asked someone else about this and they said they thought the coat check was downstairs and they directed me to an elevator. I took the elevator downstairs and immediately found a coat check room which was still being cleaned by two construction workers. There was a wall of cubicles for bags but they were all empty. Construction equipment was lying around on the counter and the room looked rather dusty and unclean. I found an information counter nearby and asked where the coat check was. A man pointed in the direction from which I had just come. I told him what I saw—that the coat check room didn't look ready and certainly wasn't staffed by anyone who looked like they were prepared to take people's coats and bags. Together we walked over and he seemed to agree. We waited for another man at the information counter to finish talking to other visitors. When we asked him where the coat check was, he said there's a free coat check over in the direction from which we had just returned. The other official explained that it wasn't finished and the other man behind the counter eventually said, "Well, I don't know what to tell you then." He suggested I might be able to leave my bag with someone behind the ticket counter, but that didn't sound very safe to me, so I ended up carrying my bag (which was rather heavy) for my entire visit. Fortunately, the galleries and the exhibits were mostly free of problems. Many pieces were missing their information cards, but I can never remember all that information anyway. I shuddered when I read the title of the introduction poster to one gallery: "America at the Crossroads." I saw works by Thomas Moran, Georgia O'Keefe, Wayne Thiebaud, and many, many more whose names I cannot remember. I saw nearly everything before deciding I needed to eat. I stopped at the cafe and decided I didn't want to wait in the long line to pay $9 for a gourmet sandwich so I left the museum and the park and found Cafe Muse at Fulton and 8th. The woman behind the counter was friendly and we chatted for a while. She's from Hong Kong, speaks Cantonese, and has a son and a daughter. Her name is Yvette. Patrick met me after he got off of work at 4:00 PM. We returned to the museum and while wandering around on the lower level I was very surprised to find a coat check counter right around the corner from the under-construction coat check I had seen earlier. I went back to the under-construction coat check area and found that it was all sealed off now—there were simply white walls in place of the doorways, as though it had never existed. I explained to the woman behind the coat check counter how I had not found the counter earlier and she apologized and took my suggestion for better signs directing people into the small, easily missed corridor. I dropped off my bag. I took Patrick up to the tower. The line seems long but it goes more quickly than you expect and the wire sculptures (and shadows thereof) to view while you wait are interesting. They have 2 elevators which can hold about 10 to 12 people each. Stairs exist, but they weren't open today. The 360-degree view from the 9th floor is a treasure—very pleasant. After the tower we went through a few of the galleries and left around 7:30 PM. Back at home, Patrick read from Harry Potter 6 and I typed up this journal entry.