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The Great Literary Trip: Day 7

I'm back! We have officially been on this journey for a whole week. Thanks for sticking around. Welcome to the day 7 recap.


Day 7

CITIES

Today was another NYC day. I had a plan today. Now, I've had a plan every day, but this morning I got to business early. I got out my G-2 ballpoint pen that I love so much, and I wrote down each stop that we were going to at *specific* times. I also wrote down the walking times between each stop. I had three different plans based on the location of our breakfast location. 

We ubered (is this a verb?) to our breakfast spot in south Manhattan and found ourselves at the gathering area for the New York City pride parade. A lot of streets were closed and blocked off. Most of the stores and publishers I planned for us to go to were along the parade route. We walked back to our hotel and decided to change our plans. 


LITERARY SIGNIFICANCE STOPS

The Central Park Carousel
The Central Park Carousel appears in J.D. Salinger's first and most well-known novel: Catcher in the Rye. The protagonist, Holden Caulfield watches his sister, Pheobe ride the carousel while he ponders the innocence and hope of childhood. It was extra special to see, ride, and ponder one of the first classic novels I ever read. 

The Central Park Literary Walk
Central Park has a series of statues of people that hold literary significance from Robert Burns to Sir Walter Scott. My favorite, of course, was none other than William Shakespeare. I have been lucky to see a lot of artifacts and statues that have connected to my love of the theatre and Shakespeare more specifically. From Shakespeare's original folio at the New York Public Library to his statue at Central Park, I have certainly felt accompanied in my love for Shakespeare throughout this trip. 


LIBRARIES

The Morgan Library
The Morgan Library was founded in 1906 to house the Morgan family's private library, artifact collection, and J. Pierpont Morgan's private study in his later years. After J.P. Morgan semi-retired from the financial district, Morgan spent most of his days in his luxurious, crimson-walled study entertaining clients and other businessmen, playing solitaire, and smoking Cuban cigars. If I had my choice of location to spend my later years, I believe I would pick the Morgan Library as well. (Or Santorini, but who wouldn't?)

The main rooms of the Morgan Library are Morgan's Private Study, the Family Library, and the Librarian's Office. All are equally gorgeous and open out into a decadent rotunda. Some highlights were the second Gutenberg Bible of our trip, an original copy of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (open to The Wife of Bath's Tale - one of my favorites), and a letter written by Mozart as a thirteen-year-old boy to his mother. Also, the Morgan family had one of the largest collections of first-edition Dickens that I have ever seen (which after a week of this trip, is saying a lot!). 

More important to me than any other artifact, however, is J.P. Morgan's essay on the importance of literature which he wrote as a fourteen-year-old student at Boston's English High School. Morgan pronounced most novels "useless trash" but allowed that "well written and true stories" can teach us "how to treat other persons with proper reverence and respect." I couldn't agree more.





I took 13,548 steps today. Check back in for another update tomorrow!

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