A lot goes down on the steps of The Met.<\/p>\n
In \u201cGossip Girl,\u201d it was where Blair Waldorf reigned supreme at the top of Upper East Side high school social hierarchy, eating small spoonfuls of yogurt at lunchtime while surrounded by her subordinate friends. Everybody knows Blair rules the steps. Blair\u2019s got power, privilege. And the steps of The Met are the ultimate status symbol.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were filming it here,\u201d said Calica, a 15-year-old \u201cGossip Girl\u201d devotee who goes to school in Queens, \u201cso it was my dream to see it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Calica was part of a group of girls on a school trip, all of them entering the museum quivering with excitement. They had never been to The Met before.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always wanted to go,\u201d Calica said.<\/p>\n
Sketching.<\/p>\n
Anna Rawls<\/p>\n
More than 3,000 teenagers flooded the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Friday for “Teens Take The Met!,” an annual free teen night.<\/p>\n
Flocks of giggling girls roamed the marble hallways. Locks of pink hair stood out in the Great Hall among the regular, adult visitors who made for an overwhelming minority.<\/p>\n
The night kicked off on the steps with a performance by the Bard High School Early College Panthers step group. They danced, stepped and clapped, starting the evening on a high.<\/p>\n
In the crowd, Siera and Katelyn wore Bronx High School hoodies.<\/p>\n
Anna Rawls<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going to stand right where Beyonc\u00e9 stood,\u201d Sierra said, pointing to where, just last week, the red carpet of the Met Gala was rolled out. She, too, had never been to the Met before.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just want to go inside, see cool things,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
While she was at it, she took a photo or two of some art.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really aesthetic.\u201d<\/p>\n
There were more than 75 activities spread across the entire museum, including a pop-up podcast in the Great Hall. Attendees could also make jewelry in the Asia Wing or try on underpinnings from the Costume Institute on the balcony.<\/p>\n
There was a DJ, jazz performances and virtual reality. People could sketch Oceanian art, decorate tote bags or customize picture frames.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a lot to take in,\u201d said a 13-year-old taking off her VR-glasses.<\/p>\n
Anna Rawls<\/p>\n
But the real showstopper, the ultimate crowd pleaser, was the silent disco at the Temple of Dendur, the Egyptian temple built in 15 B.C. to honor the goddess Iris.<\/p>\n
In rounds of 30 minutes, teens took to the floor of the temple with a pair of headphones to honor their own gods, Justin Bieber and Bad Bunny.<\/p>\n
But this disco was actually not all that silent.<\/p>\n
The sound of the group singing along to \u201cBeauty and a Beat\u201d could be heard from far outside the temple \u2014 perhaps even downtown at the Whitney Biennial.<\/p>\n
The silent disco in the Temple of Dendur.<\/p>\n
Anna Rawls<\/p>\n
From just outside the temple, an Italian New Yorker named Federico was looking at the scene with a mix of amusement and amazement.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was a surprise,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
His mother had recommended he go see the Raphael exhibition and considered Friday night as good a time as any.<\/p>\n
\u201cI usually like this area because it\u2019s very quiet and peaceful,\u201d Federico said. \u201cBut I think it\u2019s amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n
He paused, looked at the teens, adding, “It\u2019s so much safer than whatever I used to do at their age.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anna Rawls<\/p>\n
The step dancers who opened the night were among those dancing, as were the girls from the Bronx High School.<\/p>\n
Also in the crowd were Sophia and Aria, two 15-year-olds who go to school together on the Upper East Side. For them, the silent disco was the most fun activity on offer.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe left to check out the exhibits and then we came back,\u201d Sophia said. \u201cWe were like, ‘Oh this is fun, let\u2019s do it for another half an hour.’\u201d<\/p>\n
Those seeking a little more silence found another wing. Looking wistfully into a room of the Palais Paar in Vienna was 17-year-old Simone, whose friend Wyatt was somewhere roaming around another area.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re teens, so this is cheaper than like the Met Gala, \u2018cause not everybody is invited,\u201d Simone said.<\/p>\n
She was particularly amazed by the glass collection she saw.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love sea glass, that\u2019s my crazy hobby,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m not an art person, you know what I mean? I\u2019m not like Michelangelo or Da Vinci. I\u2019m not one of those people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anna Rawls<\/p>\n
The sweeping staircase leading to the Great Hall lit up in every color of the rainbow. Girls were taking photos of one another on them. At the top of the stairs, teens could spin a wheel of artworks in the area to hunt down and write a caption for \u2014 not unlike an Instagram caption.<\/p>\n
They returned to the stand with their caption written down, and after the event, Writopia sent all the captions to the teens in a digital zine.<\/p>\n
The one-liners have been trickling in. One at the top of the pile read, “He just like me fr.”<\/p>\n
It\u2019s giving art. Everywhere, there were teens dabbling in conservation in the presence of priceless artifacts. In the basement, the Uris Center for Education had been turned into a snack room.<\/p>\n
Sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall, were Jonella and Angel, who were munching on chocolate chip cookies. The two had been on a mission.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe basically went around the whole building looking for the photo booth,\u201d Jonella said.<\/p>\n
They had plastic flowers in their hair and big spiky rings on their fingers, which they collected at one of the stands.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were talking about that mostly,\u201d Jonella said.<\/p>\n
Up next, they\u2019ll probably make a tote bag, they said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I\u2019m gonna write her initial,\u201d Angel said, prompting Jonella to start scrolling on her phone, her cheeks blushing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been together for four months,\u201d Angel said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlmost five,\u201d Jonella chimed in. \u201cThat\u2019s a long time for middle schoolers, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n
The night ended with the Susan E. Wagner High School Marching Band, playing Earth, Wind & Fire\u2019s \u201cSeptember\u201d on the steps.<\/p>\n
A crowd of wanderers gathered among the teens, dancing to the drums and trombones. The funk had filled Fifth Avenue with yellow taxis racing by and the street vendors selling hot dogs, sending the teenagers back home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A lot goes down on the steps of The Met. In \u201cGossip Girl,\u201d it was where Blair Waldorf…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":236925,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":["post-236924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-bronx","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}