The Stuart Parr Collection - Art of the Italian Two Wheel - NYC

Despite living within 5 or so miles of Staten Island (almost my whole life), I haven't been to the city in over 7-years. Part of this has to do with being married, having kids, and being a grown up, but I think more of it has to do with working in Park Slope and having to commute there 5 days a week. Hanging out in nyc every weekend loses its appeal when you're trudging between 3 boroughs for 12 hours daily during the work week. Not much gets me excited enough to make the trip into Manhattan, but my mom (who works on Madison ave.) kept telling me about some weird vacant space getting filled with old Ducatis, and that piqued my interest. Then I started getting pics of the place and it wasn't just Ducatis, but also MV Agustas and a Laverda, but there were still no signs up and by all appearances, it just looked like they were assorted in some vacated building. Eventually the place opened, and it wound up being the Art of the Italian Two Wheel (Stuart Parr Collection) exhibition and what finally got me back into the city. It's open through July 18th (and it's FREE), and is definitely worth checking out.

Here's some pics of the trip. I took a lot and was going to post them all, but there's just too many.

We were greeted by a '64 Aermacchi Ala Azzurra at the door, a very good sign.

Definitely not abandoned looking anymore

This '66 Motobi racer was my favorite bike of the bunch, shame it was hanging vertically by the front desk, there were a lot of details I wanted to check out on it.

Side case cutaway in weight saving, aesthetically pleasing, sexy-Italian kind of way

 MV Army

I love the note to replace the rings on the top piston. The air-filter hidden under the tank is a nice touch too, reminds me of the original set-up on my Aermacchi 250 SS.

Darmah...

 Above and below - the two red-headed step-children of the MV Agusta family.