Destination NYC

The streets and subways may be New York’s circulatory system and connective tissue, but many of the most gripping depictions of the city’s vitality, cultures, and identity focus on the magnetic destinations where locals and visitors alike gather.  

Famous among these spots are the legendary commercial venues for entertainment and leisure, establishments big and small, glamorous and gritty. Storytellers love to set New Yorkers in motion in these “third spaces” between work and home as they eat, drink, shop, mingle, dance, and sample the city’s cultures and amusements. Whether they picture the consumers spending their time and money while out on the town, the entertainment workers who supply the talent and buzz, or the behind-the-scenes labor force that keeps the whole machine going, artists find ways to interweave the human stories with the city’s iconic spaces. 

Other artists’ eyes gravitate to New York’s huge range of outdoor and noncommercial spaces where people gather for socializing, recreation, and leisure, but also for solitude and escape from the dense urban grid. These include the city’s official parks and beaches, the changing waterfront, and private spaces like rooftops or fire escapes that New Yorkers turn into destinations of their own. Artists have long been fascinated by the contrasts that these kinds of edge environments provide against the intensity of the city streets, subways, and businesses. 

Study for “City Activities with Subway” for mural “America Today”  
Thomas Hart Benton, 1930 
Oil on Masonite 
Lent by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of AXA Equitable, 2016 (2016.425.28) 
In this study for a ten-part mural depicting urban American life in the 1920s, Thomas Hart Benton emphasizes the frantic energy and striving of inhabitants pursuing everyday "city activities." Rather than skyscrapers or other wonders of the built environment, it is the actions of New Yorkers—subway commuters, boxers, burlesque dancers, musicians, evangelists, park-bench lovers—that supply the drama and spectacle. 

SPECATCLE 

New York is renowned as a place where destinations are larger than life—where people from around the world flock to commercial attractions that dazzle the senses. From the bright lights of Broadway and the drama of the sports arena to the city’s hundreds of dance halls, movie palaces, and famed tourist, shopping, and entertainment districts, the city offers magnetic venues for storytelling and social observation. 

There are spectacular destinations in all five boroughs, but midtown Manhattan has been a particular focus of attention in the last century. Times Square’s nonstop crowds, lights, and signage offer endless opportunities for commenting on the modern capitalist experience, while the stages of Broadway theaters and Madison Square Garden provide storied settings for the constant drama of New York ambition. 

Far Left
Times Square, New York City 
Ernst Haas, 1962 
Gelatin silver print 
Museum of the City of New York. Centennial Gift of Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser, 2022.18.41 

Left
[TWA poster]  
David Klein, 1956 
Reproduction 
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-ds-06845 
In the decade after 1945, New York City became the capital of a globally dominant American culture and commerce—with midtown Manhattan emerging as the heart of the overlapping industries of modern art, design, media, and advertising. In David Klein's exuberant, semi-abstract airline poster for Trans World Airlines, Times Square radiates the undimmed optimism of mid-century modernism. 

Right
Moths 
Victor Semon Perard, c. 1925 
Ink on paper 
Museum of the City of New York. Gift of Victor Perard, 51.268.12 
In the 1920s Times Square's new theaters and restaurants became the epicenter of fashionable New York nightlife. In Victor Semon Perard's playful poke at high society, winged ladies and gentlemen stream towards a giant electric globe like "moths to the flame." One appears to collapse with exhaustion on a rooftop in the foreground, while a top-hatted man observes the dazzling but manic scene. 

Far Right
New York Amusements 
William C. Palmer, 1934 
Tempera on board 
Museum of the City of New York. Courtesy of the Fine Arts Program, Public Building Services, U.S. General Services Administration Commissioned through the New Deal Art Projects, L1226.1 
Audio Tour: 200
This unusual vision of New York pleasure-seekers at night evokes an other-worldly paradise—or perhaps hell: a subterranean dancehall of tightly packed bodies; a crowd gathered outside a glowing, temple-like theater; and, looming above it all, the celestial beams and beacons of Coney Island. 

Middle
Paradise Alley 
Jane Dickson, 1982 
Oil on vinyl 
Courtesy of the artist and Karma 
Audio Tour: 201
In the 1980s, artist Jane Dickson worked and raised her family on 42nd Street, where she captured the Times Square district's notorious street life in paintings, prints, drawings, and photographs over several decades. Her uncanny nocturnal scenes frequently explore the interplay of artificial lighting; sex-shop signage; and isolated, mostly male, sidewalk figures. 

Top Right
Times Square Dim-Out 
James Wilfred Kerr, 1944
Oil on canvas  
Museum of the City of New York. Gift of James Wilfred Kerr, 77.16.3 
A highlight of the Museum’s cityscape painting collection, this piece captures Times Square during World War II, when marquees and billboards were temporarily darkened to protect the city from potential bomb attacks. The sidewalks are nonetheless crowded with people; their faces illuminated by the softer lights of storefronts.  

Bottom Right
West 42nd Street 
Andreas Feininger, 1981 
Gelatin silver print 
Museum of the City of New York. Gift of Andreas Feininger, 90.40.29
The prolific Andreas Feininger captured New York at its most monumental, but he was equally fascinated by the city's sleezier side. He explained: "I see the city as a living organism: dynamic, sometimes violent, and even brutal." Here a passerby in a head scarf shares our storefront view of porn magazines and inflatable dolls, common sights in Times Square of the 1970s and '80s. 

Bottom Far Right
Times Square 
Nina Berman, 1997 
Digital c-print 
Collection of the artist 

Top Far Left
Dempsey and Firpo 
George Bellows, 1923–1924 
Lithograph 
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Purchase, in honor of Charles Simon, with funds given by his friends from Salomon Brothers on the occasion of his 75th birthday, 88.16 
In the 1920s New York City became the world capital of boxing, and major fights were the mass entertainment spectacles of their day. In this lithograph of George Bellows's celebrated painting, Argentinian champion Luis Ángel Firpo sends American superstar Jack Dempsey flying into the crowd at a key moment in the bout (Dempsey went on to win the fight). Bellows's vivid paean to a muscular brand of masculinity includes a self-portrait (the bald head on the far left). 

Top Left
Backstage "Porgy and Bess”  
Kyra Markham, 1936 
Lithograph 
Museum of the City of New York. Gift of the Work Projects Administration, New York City Arts Project, 43.129.40 
Kyra Markham was one of many female artists employed by the Works Progress Administration to capture everyday New York life and culture in the 1930s. Her backstage view of Porgy and Bess during a Broadway performance expresses a New Deal, populist spirit in its focus on theater workers, including both Black performers and white stagehands. 

Bottom Left
Show Girl (Rosemary Backstage) 
Stanley Kubrick for LOOK magazine, 1949 
Modern print 
Museum of the City of New York. The LOOK Collection. Gift of Cowles Magazines, Inc., X2011.4.11448.65B 

Monitor
"One" performed by the cast of A Chorus Line 
Directed by Richard Attenborough, music written by Edward Kleban and Marvin Hamlisch, 1985 
Run time: 1 min 
© 1985 Embassy Film Associates. All Rights Reserved. Courtesy of Wren Music Co., a division of MPL Music Publishing Inc. (BMI), Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Music Inc., MGM Media Licensing, and Williamson Music Company by arrangement with Concord 

Platform
[Finale costume from A Chorus Line]
Theoni V. Aldredge, designer; Woody Shelp, maker; Barbara Matera Ltd., maker; Capezio, maker, 1975
Gold-tone synthetic jersey and satin, cream cotton piqué, plastic beads, rhinestones
Museum of the City of New York. Gift of The New York Shakespear Festival, 91.62A-E
For the final number of the long-running hit musical A Chorus Line, veteran Broadway costume designer Theoni V. Aldredge brought to life a sea of dazzling gold dancers moving in perfect unison. Composer Marvin Hamlisch’s pathbreaking “modern” backstage musical follows the journeys of 17 dancers in their struggle to make it on Broadway. While for most of the show the cast wear casual rehearsal clothing, in the climactic number “One,” they emerge in identical gold satin top hats and cropped tails, underscoring the unity of the chorus line with its synchronized precision. The highly reflective costumes, enhanced by mirrored paneling and rows of stage lights, are crucial to the finale’s total effect, as the individuals blur into a gold shimmer, losing their individuality, but each briefly transformed into a shining star.

Wall
[Spectator at Ali vs. Bonavena fight at Madison Square Garden] 
Bill Ray, 1970 
Reproduction 
Bill Ray/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock 

Right
Twenty Cent Movie 
Reginald Marsh, 1936 
Carbon pencil, ink, and oil on composition board 
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Purchase, 37.43a-b 
Reginald Marsh relished the drama of everyday street life in entertainment districts like Times Square and Coney Island and the mixture of social classes who flocked there. Here, though posters promising "Joys of the Flesh" lure moviegoers inside the theater, the sidewalk scene outside proves equally compelling.

EMBODYING THE ICONIC

New York’s iconic landmarks, old and new, have been continually represented in fine art, popular culture, media, and advertising for well over a century. Often these are faithful reproductions that simply “show” the viewer the city’s wonders: the Empire State Building, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty, the subway, etc. Other times, artists re-interpret—and tweak—familiar tourist sights in order to comment on received notions about what is “iconic” (and why). 

New York fashion designers, in particular, have engaged in a long and creative dialogue with these familiar tourist icons, using clothing and personal adornment to channel—and literally embody—the city’s glamorous, dazzling spirit.

Right
Warrior Woman Stance 
Nadema Agard / Winyan Luta / Women Holy Red (Cherokee / Lakota / Powhatan), 2005 
Mixed media of pastel and digital imaging 
Courtesy of the artist 
Audio Tour: 252
Native American artist Nadema Agard depicts herself in the four sacred colors of the Lakota—red, white, yellow, and black (substituted here with blue)—while standing in a pose that recalls the Statue of Liberty. "For me," writes Agard, "it is a powerful statement and strong connection between this great American icon and the warrior woman spirit of Native America." 

Left
[New York, New York, from “East Meets West Self-Portrait Series”] 
Tseng Kwong Chi, 1979 
Gelatin silver print 
Courtesy Yancey Richardson Gallery 
Audio Tour: 253
In 1979 Tseng Kwong Chi, a gay, Hong Kong-born performance artist and photographer, began photographing himself posing solemnly in front of iconic American tourist landmarks while wearing his "Mao Suit," reflective sunglasses, and an army-style haircut. Tseng's "East Meets West" series confronted stereotypes about race and gender, offering a playful but pointed social commentary on living as an outsider. 

Left 
[Jacket, skort, and shirt ensemble]
Anna Sui, 2017
Cotton and polyester 
Museum of the City of New York. Gift of Anna Sui, 2018.29
Presented as part of the designer’s Spring 2017 ready-to-wear collection, this ensemble features a pattern incorporating the Trylon and Perisphere, the two modernistic and monumental structures of the 1939 New York World’s Fair. The pattern was directly inspired by a souvenir handkerchief from the Fair, and showcases Sui’s trademark eclecticism and narrative-based, allAmerican iconography.  

Middle
[Hand-beaded NY skyline cape and mini dress] 
Zang Toi, 2019 
Couture silk gazar 
Collection of Zang Toi 
Audio Tour: 251
This exquisitely hand-beaded cape was one of the dramatic final looks in designer Zang Toi's Fall 2020 collection, which the Malaysian-born Parsons School of Design graduate described as "a tribute to my beloved adopted home, New York City." 

Right
[Graffiti jacket] 
PART ONE (Enrique Torres), 2013 
Paint on denim 
Collection of Sean Corcoran 
Audio Tour: 250
The artist PART ONE (Enrique Torres) was a pioneer of graffiti-style writing painted on New York City subways in the 1970s and '80s. In this backpiece jacket created for Museum of the City of New York curator Sean Corcoran, he features his own name and Sean's in his signature "wild-style" lettering against the skyline of midtown Manhattan and the Hellgate bridge. 

PARKS

In many works of art, the city is depicted as someplace inescapable: its hustle, smells, and noise permeating every corner of life. But New York City is also home to over 20,000 acres of green space and 14 miles of public municipal waterfront. Observers of the city’s destinations have been repeatedly drawn to the many ways city dwellers use parks and beaches as communal backyards to gather, play, and rest. 

Artists have sought to capture the multiplicity of these special places, creating works that celebrate the intense urban sociability of open space as well as its moments of quiet beauty. 

Left
Sardines 
Weegee, 1940, print date unknown 
Gelatin silver print 
International Center of Photography
Photographer Arthur Feillig rose to fame as Weegee, capturing the gritty, and often violent, nocturnal life of Manhattan. By contrast this photograph shows a different kind of New York icon: the crowded beach at Brooklyn's Coney Island. A dizzyingly large crowd turns toward the camera: individuals can be seen posing for the photographer, who, according to legend, was jumping and screaming for the beachgoers' attention. 

Right
Homecoming 
Kadir Nelson, 2021 
Oil on linen 
Collection of the artist and THE JKBN GROUP 
Audio Tour: 242
In this piece by award-winning painter and illustrator Kadir Nelson, a young couple embraces in the middle of Brooklyn Bridge Park. Painted during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Homecoming captures the park as a place of solace and refuge, with the Bridge standing as the third pillar in the couple's intimate circle. 

Top Right
Salsa Sundays at Orchard Beach 
Cheyenne Julien, 2023 
Acrylic and oil on canvas 
Courtesy of the artist and Chapter NY, New York 
Audio Tour: 240
Created for this exhibition, Cheyenne Julian's piece celebrates Orchard Beach, the sole public waterfront in the Bronx, as a gathering place. The artist typically depicts figures in a highly stylized manner with vibrant colors, creating dream-like scenes taken from reality. This piece is rooted in her experiences growing up in the Bronx and the environmental racism the borough residents often encounter. 

Far Right
Coney Island or Brighton Beach, New York, NY  
Malcah Zeldis, 1973 
Oil on Masonite 
American Folk Art Museum, New York. Gift of David L. Davies, 2008.4.1 
Malcah Zeldis captures the vibrancy of a Brooklyn beach in her 1973 painting. Born in the Bronx in 1931, Zeldis painted scenes from her own life, often adding details from biblical texts and historic events to transform New York into a fantasy landscape. 

Bottom RIght
Untitled 
Aaron Rose, 1962–1963 
Inkjet print 
Museum of the City of New York. Gift of Aaron Rose, 2014.9.1.12 
Audio Tour: 241
Wielding his camera surreptitiously, Aaron Rose documented a "sunbaked melting pot" of beachgoers of all ages, ethnicities, and walks of life. 

Right
Bicycling in Central Park 
Alex Katz, 1983 
Color lithograph 
Museum of the City of New York. Gift of the New York Graphic Society, 83.156.3 
In this print Alex Katz surrounds his cyclist with park greenery and dappled light. If not for the city peeking through the branches of the trees behind her, one could easily imagine the cyclist on a country road. 

Top Middle
Washington Square Triple Play 
Lois Hobart, c. 1950 
Gelatin silver print 
Musuem of the City of New York. Gift of Mrs. Lois Hobart Black, X2010.11.3663 

Top Far Right
Columbus Park Volleyball 
Harvey Wang, 1980 
Gelatin silver print 
Museum of the City of New York. Gift of Harvey Wang, 2019.11.511 

Bottom Far Right
[A Life Apart: Hasidism in America production still] 
Directed by Oren Rudavsky and 
Menachem Daum, 1997 
Reproduction 
Courtesy of Menachem Film Distributor 
In this still from the documentary A Life Apart: Hasidism in America, Hasidic Jews can be seen wrapping around a pond in Prospect Park to perform a ritual for the Jewish New Year. The filmmaker explores how the community uses the secular space for prayer and what happens when religious ritual is observed and engaged with in a public park. 

Far Right
[Little Fugitive production still] 
Written and directed by Morris Engel, Raymond Abrashkin, and Ruth Orkin, 1953 
Ink on paper 
Copyright Ruth Orkin 

Right
[Little Fugitive lobby card] 
Written and directed by Morris Engel, Raymond Abrashkin, and Ruth Orkin, 1953 
Ink on paper 
Private collection 

Monitor
[Scene from Little Fugitive] 
Written and directed by Morris Engel, Raymond Abrashkin, and Ruth Orkin, 1953 
Run time: 1:28 min 
Clip provided by Kino Lorber 
When Morris Engel and Ruth Orkin wanted to film Little Fugitive on location in Coney Island, they used a hidden camera, which Engel strapped to his body, to capture the summertime glory, grit, and sometimes melancholy of Coney Island and its beaches. 

Right
[Little Fugitive production still] 
Written and directed by Morris Engel, Raymond Abrashkin, and Ruth Orkin, 1953 
Reproduction 
Copyright Ruth Orkin When Morris Engel and Ruth Orkin wanted to film Little Fugitive on location in Coney Island, they used a hidden camera, which Engel strapped to his body, to capture the summertime glory, grit, and sometimes melancholy of Coney Island and its beaches. 

Far Right
[35mm camera used to shoot Little Fugitive] 
Kodak, 1953 
Metal and plastic 
Courtesy of Orkin/Engel Film and Photo Archive 

EDGES

In this city of islands, storytellers have repeatedly found meaning in the places where the metropolis meets the water. Directors, writers, photographers, and others have explored and celebrated the water as a place of freedom for a range of urban subcultures. 

Through the first half of the 20th century, New York’s waterfront was primarily a place of work, its stories of labor and commerce interwoven with lurid tales of crime and corruption. It had its quiet moments, too, as a place of respite for swimming, fishing, or just being alone. After the decline of the shipping industry in New York, some of its piers found new life when the waterfront along the West Village of Manhattan became a haven for the LGBTQ community, until being remade as parks in the 1990s. The art of the waterfront traces this changing history: the grit of the industrial waterfront gives way to a different kind of grit that emerged once the port moved away. 

Monitor 
[Scene from Paris is Burning] 
Directed by Jennie Livingston, 1991 
Run time: 19 sec 
Courtesy of Jennie Livingston 
Filmed in the mid- to late 1980s, Jennie Livingston’s documentary Paris is Burning provides an intimate, albeit outsider’s, view into New York City’s African American and Latinx Harlem drag ball scene.  

Far Left Top
[Illustration from The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Grey Bridge]  
Lynd Ward, c. 1942 
Watercolor on paper 
Museum of the City of New York. Gift of Robin Ward Savage and Nanda Ward, 2001.83.37  
The beloved children's book by Hildegarde H. Smith celebrates the Little Red Lighthouse, which was moved to Jeffrey's Hook near 178th Street on the Hudson River in 1921 to guide shipping along the river. The construction of the George Washington Bridge made the lighthouse obsolete, but this heartwarming story created legions of fans who rallied for its preservation. 

Left
[Sketch for the murals in the United States Custom House] 
Reginald Marsh, 1937
Watercolor 
Museum of the City of New York. Gift of Mrs. Reginald Marsh, 76.24.42
The Treasury Relief Art Project paid Reginald Marsh to paint frescoes on the ceiling of the US Custom House in New York. This sketch is the template for one of these massive murals, which depicted eight New York Harbor scenes and portraits of important navigators. 

Far Left Bottom
Workers at Beekman Dock Icehouse 
Barbara Mensch, 1982 
Gelatin silver print 
Museum of the City of New York. Museum Purchase, 85.133.20 
In the 1970s and early 1980s, photographer Barbara Mensch photographed the tightly knit communities of the Fulton Fish Market and the East River waterfront before development displaced the market to the Bronx. 

Monitor
[Scene from Under the Brooklyn Bridge] 
Directed by Ruby Burckhardt, 1953 
Run time: 2:53 min 
Courtesy of the Este of Rudy Burckhardt  

Left
Gansevoort, Number 1 
Lee Krasner, 1934 
Oil on canvas 
Lent by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of The Pollock-Krasner Foundation Inc., 1997 (1997.403.1) 
Before Lee Krasner became one of the leading figures of the abstract expressionist movement, she often painted the city, whether through her window, from the streets, or along the waterfront. This is one of her few surviving early canvases, capturing a serene moment on what would have ordinarily been a thrumming waterfront. 

Far Left
Self-Portrait on Shore of Jamaica Bay 
Rosario Urbino Gerbino, c. 1960 
Oil on canvas 
Museum of the City of New York. Gift of Mrs. Frances Camilleri, 73.14.3 

Top Left
Andrea and Kite Flying Above 
Robert Frank, c. 1955 
Gelatin silver print 
Museum of the City of New York. Centennial Gift of Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser, 2022.18.33 

Bottom Left
View of Manhattan from the foot of the Manhattan Bridge, Brooklyn 
Camilo José Vergara, 1986 
Chromogenic print 
Collection of Camilo José Vergara 
Audio Tour: 231
In 1986, when Camilo José Vergara took this photograph of his two young children on the Brooklyn waterfront near the foot of the Manhattan Bridge, the site of the future Brooklyn Bridge Park was a visual symbol of deindustrialization and urban neglect. 

Right
Christopher Street Pier #2 (Crossed Legs) 
Peter Hujar, 1976 
Pigmented ink print 
Courtesy of The Peter Hujar Archive and Pace Gallery 
Audio Tour: 230
For decades the waterfront along the West Village of Manhattan has been a haven for the LGBTQ community. After the decline of the shipping industry in New York City, the piers found new life as a gathering place for gay men. 

Right
[Dead End set model]  
Set designed by Norman Bel Geddes, 1935 
Wood 
Museum of the City of New York. Gift of Mr. Sidney Kingsley, 1984.114.2 
Audio Tour: 233
Playwright Sidney Kingsley introduced a group of fictional toughs known as the "Dead End Kids" in this play, set in a poor waterfront neighborhood on the East River. Designer Norman Bel Geddes emphasized the contrast between the down-and-out industrial waterfront and the growing glamour of the new high-end residential development nearby. 

Left
[Dead End production still] 
White Studio, 1935 
Gelatin silver print 
Museum of the City of New York. Gift of the New York Public Library, 49.93.1 

PRIVATE REFUGES

Some of the most celebrated destinations in the New York landscape are hidden in plain sight. Artists have used the city’s rooftops and fire escapes as perpetual settings for romance, nostalgia, and meditation, whether they are employed for hanging out laundry, escaping the sweltering heat of tenement life, or just finding some solitude in the crowded city. 

Part of the appeal of these places is the literal escape they seem to offer. In a city that can overwhelm, these are personal spots, the places in-between, or the places of human scale. From performance artists, to photographers, to comic book writers, artists have turned to these semi-private spaces to find a new perspective on the city and to celebrate a special kind of New York freedom. 

Opposite Wall
Waaschign 
Maria Hupfield, 2017 
Reproduction 
Courtesy of Maria Hupfield 
Audio Tour: 222
Native artist Maria Hupfield created this site-specific self-portrait on a Brooklyn rooftop: "In this image I copy, flip, slide, and paste to create a background that in sections mirrors itself, so as to alter perception." She holds a landscape painting by her mother of the Georgian Bay, where she was raised. 

Left
Tar Beach # 2
Faith Ringgold in collaboration with the Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia, 1990
Acid dyes on bleached silk dupioni, and cotton 
Collection of The Fabric Workshop and Museum
Audio Tour: 221
Faith Ringgold's quilt shows the "tar beach" of a Harlem rooftop as a sociable gathering place and imagines it as a springboard for a fantastical flying journey. The eight-year-old protagonist is simultaneously on the rooftop with her friends and family and flying high above it, taking in the vantage point to view the city and the sweeping George Washington Bridge.

Top Monitor
2 Lizards 
Meriem Bennani and Orian Barki, 2020 
Run time: 1:24 min 
Courtesy of the artists, C L E A R I N G, New York/Brussels/Los Angeles and François Ghebaly, Los Angeles/New York 

Bottom Monitor
Fly By Night 
Performance artwork by Duke Riley, directed by Olivia Merrion and Leonhardt Cassullo, 2016 
Run time: 1:54 min 
Courtesy of Creative Time 
Duke Riley’s performance piece Fly by Night activated the skyline and the entire night sky by strapping LED lights to the legs of pigeons.  

Roof Piece 
Performance artwork by Trisha Brown, photograph by Peter Moore, 1973 
Peter Moore Photography Archive, Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections, Northwestern University Libraries. © Northwestern University 
In Roof Piece, choreographer Trisha Brown turned the rooftops of the distressed city of the 1970s into both the site of and subject for her piece. Dancers transmitted movements across distances between roofs, while invited audiences watched from adjacent rooftops. 

[Philippe Petit crosses between the Twin Towers] 
Alan Welner, August 7, 1974 
AP Photo/Alan Welner 
Tightrope walker Philippe Petit brought the negative space between rooftops into sharp relief when he danced across a rope strung between the towers of the World Trade Center.  

Top Far Left 
One Summer Night 
Saul Kovner, 1936–1941 
Lithograph 
Museum of the City of New York. Gift of the Work Projects Administration, New York City Arts Project, 1943.129.27 

Top Left
Terry Iacuzzo, New York City
Mitch Epstein, 1996 
Gelatin silver print 
Museum of the City of New York. Centennial Gift of Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser, 2022.18.29 

Bottom Left
Apartment House Roof 
Michael "Tony" Vaccaro for LOOK magazine, 1953 
Modern print 
Courtesy of Tony Vaccaro Studio 

Right
Words and Music of Two Hemispheres 
Francis Criss, c. 1938 
Oil on Masonite 
Philadelphia Museum of Art: Gift of Dr. Herman Lorber, 1944 
This intriguing, bright, cryptic painting of an unpeopled rooftop includes a scattering of objects that leaves viewers to guess how this private refuge was used. 

Far Right
A Roof in Chelsea, New York  
John Sloan, c. 1941–1951 
Tempera underpaint with oil-varnish glaze and wax finish on composition board 
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire; Purchased through the Julia L. Whittier Fund, P.946.12.2 
Ashcan School artist John Sloan was famously drawn to the life on the city's rooftops. In this late work he finds beauty not only in the everyday chore of hanging laundry to dry, but in the blowing clothes and their echo in the swirling white of the flock of pigeons above the tenements. 

Right to Left
Batman #67 
Written by Tom King, art by Lee Weeks and Dave Johnson, 2019 
Ink on paper 
Private collection 

Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #4 
Written by Peter David, art by Mike Wieringo, 2006 
Ink on paper 
Collection of Sean Corcoran 

Captain America Vol. 1 #171 
Written by Mike Friedrich and Steve Englehart, art by Sal Buscema, Vince Colletta, and Linda Lessmann, 1973 
Ink on paper 
Private collection 

Amazing Fantasy Vol. 1, No. 15 
Written by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, art by Steve Ditko and Stan Goldberg, 1962, reprinted 2002 
Ink on paper 
Private collection 

Audio Tour: 220

The inaccessibility of New York's rooftops makes them particularly apt settings for dramatic chase scenes and supernatural confrontations between good and evil. Superheroes often have a special relationship to the city's rooftops—being able to land on them with ease and even to appreciate the vistas that they offer. 

GOING OUT

For well over a century, the city’s tens of thousands of bars, nightclubs, and restaurants have provided the ideal settings for artists to observe their fellow New Yorkers and visitors alike. The city is unthinkable without its dining, drinking, and dancing spots, which allow New Yorkers to be themselves, often behaving in a very different vein from their lives at home, at work, or out on the streets. 

Artists have long been fascinated with the drama, comedy, and pathos these gathering places set out for all to see, as New Yorkers live their lives out loud in public. The works on view here show how drinking and dining establishments allow for both individual encounters and community socializing, while dance floors and bar stools provide spaces for self-expression and the exploration of different politics and identities. 

Right 
[Crowd at nightclub]
Christopher “DAZE” Ellis, c. 1985
Acrylic on canvas 
Museum of the City of New York. Gift of Mr. Martin Wong, 94.114.80
Christopher “DAZE” Ellis was a prolific graffiti artist in New York, painting subway cars around the city.  In the 1980s, he had transitioned into a studio practice—and a more figurative style—and began painting crowded club scenes. In this dance floor scene, inspired by nights spent at the Mudd Club, Area, Danceteria, and other downtown clubs, DAZE foregrounds a motley crew of New York individuals trying out different moves—and personas—under the pulsing lights.  

Middle
Club Julio A. Mella (Cuban Worker's Club) 
Henry Glintenkamp, 1937 
Oil on canvas 
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA, Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. 71.2248 
Audio Tour: 213
Some destinations fascinate artists because of their role in their particular communities. Here Ashcan School artist Henry Glintenkamp depicts the diverse proletarian crowd of Club Julio A. Mella. Occupying a three-story Manhattan building, the Worker's Club had a basement bar where members gathered to talk, eat, drink, and dance. Posters in the background reference Mexican elections and the Spanish Civil War. 

Top Far Right
Speakeasy 
Ben Shahn, c. 1934 
Gouache and tempera on Masonite 
Museum of the City of New York. Courtesy of the Fine Arts Program, Public Building Services, U.S. General Services Administration Commissioned through the New Deal Art Projects, L1226.3G 
This work by Ben Shahn is part of a series of studies intended for a never-completed restaurant mural depicting scenes inside a speakeasy bar during the raucous Prohibition era (1920–1933). The Lithuanian-born Shahn learned fresco painting as an assistant to Diego Rivera in the early 1930s. 

Bottom Far Right
Silver Palace Restaurant, 52 Bowery 
Carin Drechsler-Marx, March 11, 1977 
Gelatin silver prints 
Museum of the City of New York. Museum purchase, 82.143.78, 82.143.80 

Left
[Jacket worn by Rahiem of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five] 
Unknown maker, c. 1983 
Leather 
Courtesy of the Museum of Pop Culture, Seattle, WA 
Formed in the Bronx in 1978, the pioneering hip-hop group Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five gained a following performing at parties and shows throughout the city. Members often dressed in animal prints and elaborate military-style studded leather. This outfit, worn by Rahiem, epitomizes the style of the time.

Middle
[Gown from POSE] 
Costume designed by Analucia McGorty and Lou Eyrich, 2018 
Synthetic plastic 
Collection of the costume designers and FX Networks 
Audio Tour: 210
The TV series POSE explored the drama and glamour of New York’s ballroom drag scene from the 1980s–1990s, a subculture forged in the city’s Black and Latinx LGBTQ communities and descended from the Harlem drag balls of the 1920s. Elektra Abundance-Evangelista’s costume for a ballroom competition channels her ambition and exuberance. 

Right
[T-shirt from Kids] 
Costume designed by Kim Marie Druce, 1995 
Cotton 
Collection of Chloë Sevigny 
Audio Tour: 211
Over the course of a single day, Jennie, the main character of Larry Clark's Kids (played by Chloë Sevigny in her first role), traverses New York City in this blue t-shirt, moving from house parties to Washington Square Park to nightclubs. The film shocked audiences with its frank portrayal of teenage drug use, sex, and partying in the city. 

Left
[Clapperboard from the last shot of Desperately Seeking Susan] 
Orion Pictures, 1984 
Plastic, metal, and wood with ink 
Collection of Susan Seidelman 
This clapperboard was presented to director Susan Seidelman on the final day of shooting her 1986 film, Desperately Seeking Susan, starring Rosanna Arquette and a then-little-known Madonna. The hip comedy of errors was set in New York's 1980s underground arts scene, and key sequences were shot at Danceteria, the West 21st Street nightclub where Madonna was a regular. 

Right to Left
Live at CBGB's 
Various Artists, 1976 
Ink on cardboard
Private collection

Live at the Apollo 
James Brown and The Famous Flames, 1963 
Ink on cardboard
Private collection

Fania All-Stars Live at the Cheetah, Vol. 1 
Fania All-Stars, 1971 
Ink on cardboard 
Private collection 

These three albums capture live performances by James Brown, the Fania All-Stars, and a selection of mid-1970s rock bands at three iconic Manhattan venues: the Apollo on 125th Street in Harlem, famous for launching James Brown and many other Black musical stars to fame; the Cheetah, a Latin-American dance club on West 52nd Street that helped popularize salsa; and CBGB, “the home of underground rock,” on the Bowery. 

Right to Left
The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love 
Oscar Hijuelos, 1989 
Ink on paper 
Private collection 

The Locusts Have No King 
Dawn Powell, 1954 
Ink on paper 
Private collection 

Home to Harlem 
Claude McKay, 1928 
Ink on paper 
Private collection 

Audio Tour: 214

Some of the most memorable scenes of 20th century New York nightlife are found in novels. From Claude McKay's freewheeling evocation of Jazz Age Harlem and Dawn Powell's satire of 1940s socialites and literary types, to Oscar Hijuelos's romantic saga of young Cuban musicians playing in uptown salsa ballrooms, novels incorporate the city's hot spots as both settings and characters in their own right. 

Right
Bar Boy 
Salman Toor, 2019 
Oil on wood 
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Purchase, with funds from John Auerbach and Ed Tang, 2022.119 
Audio Tour: 215
Pakistani-born, Brooklyn-based artist Salman Toor paints a young man at a queer bar somewhere in New York, engrossed by his cell phone as a crowd of late-night revelers flows around him. 

Top Far Right
Lynette and Donna at Marion's Restaurant 
Nan Goldin, 1991 
Cibachrome 
Museum of the City of New York. Centennial Gift of Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser, 2022.18.38 
Since the 1970s, photographer Nan Goldin has chronicled the bohemian lives of her family, friends, and lovers in dimly lit downtown lofts and bars. In this glowing image, a couple shares an intimate moment at a table at Marion's, the trendy lesbian nightspot on the Bowery. 

Bottom Far Right
St. Nick's Pub, Harlem 
Gerald G. Cyrus, 1994 
Gelatin silver print 
Museum of the City of New York. Gift of Gerald G. Cyrus, 98.39.1