The Morgan

I had never been to the Morgan before and I was not sure what to expect. I also had not known that it was closed to the public on Mondays and we would be getting a private tour. Dr. Declan Keily met us at the entrance and led us up the elevator, through the kitchen, up the stairs and into the Music room; a double doored private space for a private viewing.

As we sat down in the room, I was still unsure as to what was ahead. Because the class had not been together in so long in a formal classroom setting, I did not know what or who we would be discussing. We had visit after visit with little time to reflect all together. As the cart of artifacts came out I felt as if we were treated as royalty, being able to touch a letter from Poe to an editor about a poem he was working on. I bet it never occurred to him that a dozen NYU students would be awning over this scrap of paper within the next 200 years.

Coming into the class, I did not know exactly what we would be studying and how much history of Washington Square we would become familiar with. It was after this visit that I realized the importance of New York, being the center for new ideas, and understanding the bouncy ball effect one artist or author had on the next. Ideas flowed and still flow from one person to another, ideas are built on top of each other and monumental activity erupts. We were able to see more history; a manuscript by Henry James with his own personal notes in the margins and pages that were completely obliterated. We saw more of Poe's work on an original scroll and I wondered why authors thought that was a good method- creating a scroll did not seem that ideal in my opinion. Then we saw one of Woody Allen's screenplays and the class began to chuckle. Seeing a 20o year old hand written letter and then to a movie script written about 40 years ago was quite a juxtaposition. These various artifacts said a lot about Washington Square. What is it about the Square that is so influential and why does it maintain that essence today?