Tales from The Social Club: A Beating Heart Inside the Utility?
- Shane Holmes
- 2 days ago
- 7 min read
Meeting Date and Time: Tuesday, March 11, 2025 from 5 PM to 7 PM
Meeting Location(s): Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, 2 E 91st St, New York, NY 10128 and DIG, 1297 Lexington Ave, New York, NY 10128
Website Link(s): Cooper Hewitt Museum and DIG
On a sunny and warm late winter evening, we met in one of the quieter regions of Manhattan: the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. This museum is located on the Museum Mile (5th Ave.) right across from Central Park.
The museum is an interesting piece of architecture. Formerly the home (a mansion) of industrial magnate Andrew Carnegie, the exterior has 3 floors consisting of windows. A nice courtyard also exists just outside the museum within the fence. Carnegie's home was constructed from 1899 to 1902 and has 64 rooms. The home was the first private residence in the United States to consist of a structural steel frame.(1)
We met inside the museum and it was nice and quiet (just how I like it). We were there for the final hour the museum was open as well which meant a low crowd.
We first visited the ground floor where we found an interesting picture of "students and friends cooking together at the Commongrounds Cooperative in Traverse City, preparing dishes from countries throughout Latin America." This event was important in that it was an opportunity for people of different backgrounds to "share language, culture, and for building fellowship in East Jordan."(2)
The above photo shows "what young people in the town of East Jordan accomplished by considering everyone, asking questions, and working together to come up with ideas."(3) The Commongrounds Cooperative picture is an example of how choosing to seek common ground, despite our many differences, can build connection and support the greater good of the community. It's also a call to action.
I invite you, the reader, to think about how you can create positive change in your community. Volunteering is one way to make change. For example, I participated in local park cleanups (picking up trash) to help care for both the environment and the beauty of my community. If you're not sure where to start, Volunteer New York! is an organization that I have volunteered with in the past. They have a list of volunteer opportunities you can sign up for. You can click here for their website if you are interested in learning more.
On Saturday, April 26, I volunteered to clean up/pick up trash at Feeney Park in New Rochelle, NY (only one mile from where I live in Mount Vernon, NY). I was able to walk there and back. Below is a group picture of the team of volunteers that showed up that day to clean up the park. I am the 5th person from the right.
Transitioning back to describing the museum, the next place we visited was the living room where Andrew Carnegie, his wife Louise, and their daughter Margaret would spend their time together. The room had soft music playing in the background that was connected to the piano displayed in this image.
We then proceeded to an area with large glass windows. This area (named Ebb+Flow) was all about the Florida Everglades. While I do not remember what exactly I was listening to wearing headphones in the below picture, the sounds heard in this room without wearing headphones were the sounds of the Southern Florida Everglades wetlands (primarily birds).
We then visited the quietest area of the museum, the library.
Library Bookshelf and a Chair Library Interior and Seating
We then proceed to go to the Game Room which is described below.
We then viewed a very unique looking monopoly board.
We then visited a building home exhibition where we observed an infographic titled "Aging & the Meaning of Home" describing some of the challenges that people over 65 years old face such as loneliness and depression.
After we viewed this infographic, I asked Juliette and my fellow Social Club Members if they faced any challenges with the start of Daylight Saving Time which had occurred 2 days earlier. As a reminder, the clocks are set one hour ahead for Daylight Saving Time. Therefore, we all lose one hour of sleep. The way to remember whether or not to set the clocks backwards or forward one hour is spring ahead (one hour ahead in the season of spring) and fall back (one hour back in the fall season). Personally, I hate the start of Daylight Saving Time because of the loss of sleep and, as an amateur astronomer (I own 2 telescopes and a pair of binoculars) the night skies get darker one hour later. It is especially bad on the longest day of the year, the first day of summer (the summer solstice). Although sunset that day is approximately 8:30 PM in the NYC Metropolitan Area, the skies do not get fully dark until approximately 10:30 PM. Also, when I was in high school my bedtime was 8 PM. With it being light out at 8 PM, I struggled to get to sleep and often would not fall asleep until 9 PM or even later in some instances.
For a different perspective of the time change, Juliette spoke about her challenges with Daylight Saving Time, particularly with not being used to getting up in the morning when it was still dark and her disrupted sleep pattern. Where Juliette and I differ on Daylight Saving Time is, after adjusting to the time change, Juliette likes that the sun sets one hour later where as I do not. Juliette likes that the sun sets at approximately 8:30 PM on the first day of summer because she likes to partake in summertime activities while it is still light out. I wonder how the elderly discussed in the exhibit were impacted by seasonal time change.
To summarize my experience visiting the museum, the pictures below show the exterior (left picture) and interior (right picture) of the museum. I am showing you these pictures again to illustrate my point in the next paragraph.
Exterior of Cooper Hewitt Interior Living Room
The interior and exterior of the museum are such fascinating architecture that, in my view, they are best summed up by one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite TV series on Netflix, A Man on the Inside. In a guest lecture, when he described the Golden Gate Bridge, retired professor Charles Nieuwendyk said "that ultimately is what distinguishes great engineering from merely useful engineering. Does the form match the function? Does the soul of the thing matter to those who use it? Is there a beating heart inside the utility? In this case, the answer, clearly, is yes.”
The Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum is great engineering in my view. The form (the museum) meets the function (showcasing spectacular history). The soul of the museum most certainly mattered to me. The soul best being captured by the awe inspiring pictures I took. I definitely see as the museum having a beating heart inside the utility as it inspires me towards making positive changes in my community.
That being said, if you want to answer Charles Nieuwendyk's questions for yourself, my best advice to you would be to visit this museum so you can truly experience it.
After we left the museum, we took a short walk to DIG, a chain restaurant. You can think of the menu like Burger King except healthier. You can look at the menu by clicking here. I personally was not in the mood for anything on their menu so I went to a grab and go restaurant next store to get a sandwich, yogurt, and seltzer. The nice thing about this DIG location is they allow you to bring outside food into their restaurant, a rarity in NYC. When we arrived, music was playing too loudly. However, when I asked the staff politely to turn down the music, they did. I give DIG a rating of 4.9 out of 5 stars (although a caveat is I did not eat their food so this rating does not account for that).
During our meal, we played a game of trivia where we created our own questions. I asked how many states are in the Colorado River Basin? The answer is 7 (Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming). As a side note, back in the early to mid 2000s, I went white water rafting down the rapids of the Colorado River as a part of a sleepaway camp back in my teen years. Rapids have 6 classes (with class 1 being calm water that barely moves and class 6 being Niagara Falls). The rapids I rode were mostly class three but there were a few class fours. Sadly, the Colorado River is at risk of drying up from people overusing the water for drinking and agriculture. You can view what, in my opinion, is a funny dark comedy video clip (by clicking here) on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert which starts with a news clip of for the first time in United States history the US Federal Government declaring a water shortage on the Colorado River.
One Social Club Member posed the trivia question "what book was written as a result of an economic downturn in the United States? The answer is The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, published in 1900.(4)
After we finished eating and our trivia game, we went our separate ways in what was the end of an excellent Social Club outing. I most certainly would like to visit the museum again as part of another TSC outing, if other members would also be up for it.
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Sources
I got the information for the Commongrounds Cooperative in Traverse City picture from a description of the photo on the wall at the museum.
I got the information for the Commongrounds Cooperative in Traverse City picture from a different description (from source 2 above) of the photo on the wall at the museum.
The Library of Congress (https://www.loc.gov/item/03032405/)
