Art students paint the town on New York City Spring Break trip
For seven years, Utah State University students and Logan community members have had the opportunity to visit New York City with the Art department during Spring Break.
This year was the last time.
“New York is very successful every year. It pulls at least 40 students each year. It offers a more well-rounded education,” said Sonya Warner, assistant program administrator.
This year art admirers went with professors Tom Toone and Allen Hashimoto and Warner to see the sights.
“It’s a great tour. All of them were. It just isn’t financially profitable,” Toone said.
The tour visits all the major museums in New York, Toone said.
“In a way, the city itself is a museum,” Toone said. “You can see the history of 20th century architecture in the buildings.”
Toone said the class starts at the beginning of the semester and students research art to prepare for the trip.
“I think what draws the students to the tour is getting to go to the museums and being able to see the paintings and sculptures they’ve studied in class with a professor on site,” Warner said.
Once they get to the city, the agenda is very tight, Toone said. They usually start the day at 8:30 a.m. and some go until 2 a.m.
In New York, they visit the Frick Collection, Morgan Library, Museum of Modern Art, Time Square, Mid-town, Little Italy, China Town, the Cloisters, Brooklyn Bridge and the Metropolitan Museum of Art to name a few.
“What’s neat is seeing all the buildings you see in movies,” Toone said.
The evenings are open for students to do as they please. Toone said many would get tickets to Broadway musicals or explore different areas as they got to know the town better.
They take the Staten Island Ferry past the Statue of Liberty, visit Wall Street, go to jazz club, and this year some even got tickets to Letterman.
Toone said the city has “anything you’d ever want.”
Every year, Toone said they ride the elevator up to the top of the Empire State Building, usually on the first night, for the “spectacular view.”
“They all like it,” Toone said. “We’ve never really had any negative feedback at all.”
Toone said New York is the “city of the 20th century.” He said it never sleeps, is ethnically divers and is a world-class city.
For students, seeing New York “opens up new horizons,” Toone said.
Toone said his favorite destinations would probably be the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History.
“You could spend a week there and not see everything,” Toone said.
With the trip over, the class members will hand in their assignments and disband, this time for good.
“I think it’s a valuable program, but we have to cover our time and our costs,” Warner said. “It was a good business decision to cut in this particular instance.”