To get a taste of the wide array of art and architecture in New York City, 15 residents of Cornell's Dickson Hall and the Multicultural Living Learning Complex embarked on a one-day whirlwind tour of the city April 24, led by faculty-in-residence Cheryl Finley, assistant professor of history of art.

A charter bus from Ithaca left the group at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), where the students viewed a controversial retrospective of pioneering Yugoslavian performance artist Marina Abromovic, which included an ongoing live performance by Abromovic and the first live re-performances of her work by other people.

Abromovic's performance piece gave Sidra Irfan '10, an ILR major, "an eerie feeling," she said in an e-mail. But Oscar Coaquira '13, a biology major, said the visit helped him appreciate the range of art forms not normally displayed in galleries.

He added that he found the different media displayed in the Picasso exhibit particularly intriguing. "I was so used to seeing certain almost generic Picasso pieces," he said, "but the exhibit showed different facets of how he worked with different media."

From MoMA, Finley took the group on a walking tour of Manhattan that included Times Square and the now-fashionable Garment District, where she invoked the New York of 100 years ago with descriptions of workers carrying bolts of fabric and unfinished clothes across the streets.

Stops along the way included purchases of such street fare as empanadas and hot pretzels. Coaquira described the street scene as "otherworldly. You could really see the different cultures from the faces walking by and the food they were selling on the street."

Adam Izraelevitz '13, an engineering major who grew up in a small New Mexico town, joined the trip primarily to see the city but noted that he enjoyed learning about the city's artistic depth as well as its crowded streets, which he admits he found somewhat intimidating.

In Chelsea's art district the group visited numerous galleries, where displays ranged from works by Mickalene Thomas to the photographs of French artist Mohamed Bourouissa.

Madison Square Garden/Penn Station served as a platform for Finley to talk about the historic preservation movement, which was born when the original Beaux-Arts train station was demolished in 1963 and replaced with what she calls "a horrible, hideous, ugly building."

At the new High Line Park, created from a 1930s out-of-use elevated freight railway as a result of the historic preservation movement, the group strolled the length of the elevated park, surrounded by flowering plants and perennial herb beds, watching the sun set over New York Harbor and the Statue of Liberty.

After a visit to New York University, the day ended with dinner at a New York institution, Patsy's Pizzeria, founded in 1933; its legendary pizza is considered a work of art in itself.

"I made a lot of good friends on the trip," said Coaquira. "And I learned more about the power art can actually have, as an expression of something you can't say through words but can through color, drawing and technique."

Linda Glaser is a staff writer in the College of Arts and Sciences.