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New Yorkers often joke about Brooklyn, as though it is a bucolic country cousin. But I found any number of tranquil, tree-lined, lovely sections that are far more pleasant than the general bareness, and even harshness, of so many sections of New York.

With the extra income from my work in Brooklyn, I was able to sign up for two classes at night. I studied the history and techniques of making rugs in a course given by Meyer Reifstahl at the Metropolitan Museum and another in tapestry under Phylis Ackerman. Later, I took a third course, this in embroidery, at the Museum. In retrospect, it seems that "the Met" was a second home at that time. On weekends, sometimes with company but more often alone, I haunted the other museums, Copper Union, Newark with its collection of "Americana," the Museum of Natural History, and long hours in the South American wing of the Brooklyn Museum, studying and sometimes sketching the exhibits of textiles, carving and sculpture.