President’s Letter: July 2024
Monthly observations and insights from MAS President Elizabeth Goldstein
Am I the only one who has noticed that pearls are back? They have been appearing everywhere, not just in the usual places, adorning the ladies that lunch. I see people of all genders and sexual orientations wearing pearls on the streets and on the subway, and across more class divides than you would have thought possible. I’m not a jewelry aficionado, so I don’t know enough to spot the real from the fake, or the cultured from the natural. But I can spot a new fashion trend. That probably means they started to reappear two years back. Cue the emoji.
The fascinating thing about pearls, the real ones and especially the natural ones, is that they stem from a remarkable adaptation. An irritant like a piece of sand gets inside an oyster and it grows a hard shell around it to protect itself. That protection is something humans over the ages have treasured.
I got to thinking more about what this means for humans when I was out on Governors Island a few weeks ago. It was one of those precious summer days, a beautiful Friday, offering a break in our sweltering weather. My sister, brother-in-law, husband, and I set off on a little day’s escape from the city. None of them had ever been to Governors Island. The Island is hardly mine to show off, but it is so much fun to help folks explore a new place! It is kind of fun. I am hardly Amerigo Vespucci but I steered us across the great New York Harbor to our destination. He, of course, got lost and bumped into North America. We got to our chosen destination.

The reason for our trip that day was to see an art installation in Fort Jay. I don’t think I had ever been to Fort Jay before, just around the outside. You pass over a moat into the star shaped fort itself. You emerge into a sunlit courtyard surrounded by buildings with column-fronted porches. It feels like you have entered a time warp to the 1800’s.
The art installation is in an old underground magazine, that was used to store munitions. As you walk down into the vault the temperature drops and darkness envelopes you. The show, entitled Other of Pearl, is a series of works by Jenny Kendler. The piece you encounter first is a little underwhelming initially. A series of bell jars hold open oyster shells. It is only when you look more closely that you realize the pearls in these oysters are oddly shaped. The pearls have grown around miniature Greek figures and forms. Each one is more exquisite than the last and draws you onward to discover what mystery the next shell holds. The colors in the spotlights are iridescent and jewel-like.
This is a series of distinct art works defined by man’s impact on sea life. Each of the beautifully conceived installations reinforces the theme through parts of whales or oysters that are fashioned into other worldly things. For instance, there is a room full of different-sized glass bells with the vocal bones of a whale. The guard played them for us. Other worldly is right, with the sounds bouncing around a chamber with a round celling.
Other of Pearl made me wonder about how this metaphor works for our changing city and what we need to be looking for in our climate solutions. In the waters running past Governors Island, the Billion Oyster Project is trying to restore the shoals of oysters that used to populate our harbor.
Over the past few decades New York City has started to transform some of its own irritants into pearls. Think of the remnants of our industrial past that no longer provide jobs and commerce, that have become amazing new public spaces like The High Line or Sponge Park along the Gowanus Canal or Brooklyn Bridge Park along the waterfront. (If you want to read about a new potential pearl in formation right now, go read the wonderful profile of Rosa Chang and her vision for a new park along Manhattan’s East River shoreline.)
All of these new pearls started out as irritants. But in all cases, they are only pearls today because dedicated, determined, and, yes, gritty New Yorkers envisioned something new and wonderful. The pearl uses natural systems to protect itself. That idea gives me hope that we can find ways to protect our city from the rising seas, rainfall, and heat brought on by climate change.
I hope that you are experiencing summer places that give you peace in these tumultuous times and food for thought. I found a little of mine on Governors Island.
Elizabeth Goldstein
President, Municipal Art Society of New York