I'm going to try something. Instead of multiple posts per day (can you tell I have no one to talk to?) I'm going to start one post per day, file it as a draft, update it when I feel like it, and post it at the end of the day. That'll make for some long entries, I guess, but only one a day.
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Today I went to an art exhibition, at the invitation of one of the artists. It ran for four days, Friday through today, in a historic building housing a legislator's offices. The advertised hours, both on the postcard I received and the personal email I got from the friend, were 10 am 'til 5 pm. Today was the first day I was able to go. It was a 45 minute drive, through the mountains, and I got there at 3:42 pm.
The place was cleared out. Exhibitors had packed up their cars and were leaving. A few people were moving furniture back into place when I arrived. There wasn't one piece of art anywhere. My friend said that they'd had no visitors since 2 pm, so at 3:00 they started shutting down.
He then "apologized", "I'm so sorry you were too late."
I about exploded. I looked him in the eye to make sure he understood what I was saying, "Bull. I wasn't too late. I was here in plenty of time. You guys didn't uphold your commitment to me and others like me. Your advertised hours were until 5!"
I've seen at lot of that lately - people just don't consider others. Back when I ran the monthly dinner, when we canceled because of snow, when we asked for RSVPs, I made sure everyone who had responded was aware we'd canceled. Sometimes there were no RSVPs required, just show up, and on several of those occasions I drove through a flippin' blizzard to make sure there was at least a note on the door.
Nowadays, it's not unusual to arrive at the appointed place and find no one there. I went to a dinner in Tivoli a few months ago and found the restaurant had closed suddenly a few days before. I was 5 minutes late. No one was there, and there was no note on the door as to a change of venue. I was hungry, so went to another place down the street, and found five other Mensans sitting there. They had all arrived before seven, found it closed, and moved - without leaving a note or waiting to see if anyone else showed up. One more person joined us, a result of the note *I* had left on the door. Hey folks, it really wasn't that difficult....
Bugs the hell out of me.
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Driving to the aborted exhibit, I passed an impressively huge mansion off to the side of the road, turrets and porches and bays. It was abandoned, grey unpainted wood rotting and falling, windows all broken. In person, it looks a LOT bigger than this photo implies.
(There are more of Lucas's photos of the exterior here: http://lucas-photography.blogspot.com/2007/12/bennett-college-in-millbrook-ny.html.)
When I got to the gallery I asked what it was. Until 1976, it was the Bennett College (Millbrook, NY). A very fashionable college (read finishing school) for women (no relation to the Greensboro, NC school of the same name). They ran out of money, and closed, and the building has been empty since. It's a shame. On the way home, I stopped for a closer look. I found another photo online, at http://www.opacity.us/site11_bennett_school_for_girls.htm#gallery17 (scroll UP to see the exterior photo), taken about 2 or three years ago.
Interior here: http://www.opacity.us/gallery17_close_calls.htm. Click on the first photo, then just keep going "next". Below the photos are comments, some very interesting comments from alumni.
A photo of an interior during its heyday here: http://www.hrvh.org/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/mfl&CISOPTR=44, and more can be found at that Hudson River Valley Heritage website - search for "Bennett College".
I hate to see wonderful old buildings rotting away like that. The stonework is all still in perfect condition.
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Howcum calendars that feature landscape photos always have winter photos during the winter months and summer photos during summer months and so on? When I open a new calendar to January, when it's cold and snowy and freezing outside, the last thing I want to see is a snowscape. If I were designing those calendars, I'd have snow scenes in the summer, and summer scenes in the winter.
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2 comments:
Wow, what an amazing and magnificent building, Bennett College is! It's the sort of building I've always dreamed of buying and restoring. But in those photos, the place is so destroyed! I love the photo of Halcyon Hall in it's heyday! I'd love to go to that site one day and just walk around the grounds. It completely intrigues and spooks me at the same time! Thanks for posting that.
I wanted to walk around, too, but it's next to impossible. There's a crazy caretaker living in the old chapel who goes so far as to yell at people taking photos from the road! He will call the police if you trespass on the grounds.
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