A Tranquil Oasis in the Big Apple

I haven’t lived in New York City for about a year, but I’m back now. Maybe it’s because I’m taking a different subway train, but I’ve been seeing striking ads all over for the RMA—the Rubin Museum of Art.

On the corner of 17^th Street and Seventh Avenue, the museum, opened in October 2004, is “the first in the Western World dedicated to the art of the Himalayas and surrounding regions." The ads feature a head shot of one of the RMA’s average visitors—usually a funky-dressed, aging hippie—"overheard" saying something profoundly Buddhist-sounding, like, “Everything is everything." They’re eye-catching, though, and they’ve done the trick: I’m planning a visit.

Running around like the proverbial poultry with its head cut off for the past two weeks in a city legendary for its chaotic pace, I need an injection of serenity. I haven’t been able to pop in to the RMA yet, but I walked by today and even the front entrance exerts a calming influence, owing a debt to its previous incarnation as a wing of Barneys department store.

Even with the proliferation of museums and general art goings-on in Manhattan, the RMA has carved a niche. I’m looking forward to seeing “The Missing Peace: Artists Consider the Dalai Lama," in which artists treat “the power of spirituality, the mystery of transcendence, universal interconnectedness, the need for peace," and I also want to see the mural Pema Rinzin, painted in the museum while he was an artist-in-residence earlier this year. As soon as I can take a break from this move to take a deep breath and rein in my prana, I’ll be there.