The roof terrace at the Met

Roxy Paine, Maelstrom

One of my favorite places in New York City is the roof terrace at the Met. Yesterday Lily and I spent a wonderful afternoon at the museum looking at Egyptian artifacts since we had read about ancient Egypt in our history book. I realized how incredibly privileged we are to be able to do just that, actually to see the things we had read about, and to criss-cross through time as we wandered from the ancient Egypt section to the 19th-century America pavilion, then back to Medieval Europe. For a break, we went up to the roof terrace and completely went wild for Roxy Paine's monumental sculpture, which took up most of the space. A mass of entangled stainless steel resembling roots of an ancient tree, the work suits the space perfectly, mirroring just the mix of nature and the industrial city that makes up the spectacular view from the terrace. It was so strangely beautiful, a vast improvement over the last installation, the Jeff Koons dog.