A tour of Fort Tryon Park. Page four: the Cloisters.

Click on any image to get the full sized view.

At the northern end of Fort Tryon Park lies The Cloisters -- The Metropolitan Museum's annex for Medieval Art. The history of the present-day Cloisters building is summarized by the New York City Guide (Federal Writer's Project, 1939):

The Cloisters collection was started by the late George Grey Barnard, the sculptor, who spent many years in France gathering examples of medieval art; a few of them were found in barns and pigsties near ruined churches and monasteries. in December, 1914, the artist placed the collection on display in a building specially built for it on Fort Washington Avenue. The Metropolitan Museum bought the collection in 1925 with funds provided by Mr. Rockefeller. When the Fort Tryon property was given to the city by Mr. Rockefeller in 1930, foru and a half acres were reserved as a site for a museum building to be devoted exclusively to the collection. Land along the Palisades on the opposite side of the Hudson was acquired by the parton to insure the view.

Plans were drawn by Charles Collens of the Boston firm of architects, Allen, Collens, and Willis, in collaboration with officials of the Metropolitan Museum. The building was opened in the spring of 1938.

Because of its beautiful wooded location in the park, as well as Rockefeller's generosity and foresight to buy and reserve the wooded land along the Palisades, it's sometimes hard to remember that you are in Manhattan, and not somewhere in the French provinces.

The Cloisters as seen through the trees.	The Cloisters up close.

In spring 1999, the entrance to the Cloisters had a new attraction: a rooster holding court, lending just the right amount of French provincial color to a New York Park. Later, during the summer, the rooster disappeared. I asked one of the door guards at the museum what had become of the rooster. She told me that the rooster was not an official museum feature. Rather, he had appeared one day in the park, stayed for a few months, and then disappeared as mysteriously as he had come. She guessed that he was an escapee from somebody's grocery bag, and that he had been eventually caught by somebody else and eaten. C'est la vie!

The rooster presiding over his domain.	The rooster is dwarfed by the museum, but he doesn't seem to notice.

Return to page three of the park tour.

Return to the neighborhood tour.

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