Marcy Avenue, Brooklyn (underpainting) oil on panel 48" x 72"
The underpainting above represents about two weeks of work on my latest attempt to capture a vibrant NYC street scene at night.
The subways in NYC emerge from underground in various parts of the five boroughs to become elevated lines, running for miles on riveted latticework structures through neighborhoods at the third or fourth story level of most adjacent buildings. For a long time, I've been as interested in the elevated stations, platforms, walkways and signal towers as I have been in the underground portion of the system.
A few years ago I was looking for aerial vantage points (that didn't involve drones) of an elevated station to take reference photos for paintings when I first found this location, the first stop in Brooklyn on the J, Z, and M lines after crossing over the East River on the Williamsburg bridge. I've done several paintings of the view down the tracks topside on various lines, but I also wanted to do one of this station from the roof of one of the buildings just to the south on Marcy Avenue. I picked out a likely vantage point using Google Earth, but when I went in with my camera, the guy behind the desk had only one answer for every question I tried to ask, even before I could finish them: NO. Eventually he put me on the phone with his boss, who was on the same program. So I gave up and went across the street to the housing project, where I snuck in behind a resident to find the roof access door unlocked. Bingo, glorious views down at the station and for miles in every direction. I did this little painting from one of the great angles up there: Marcy Avenue.
Photo looking east towards Marcy Avenue along Broadway at dusk, late August 2016
But now I was interested in the scene underneath that elevated station, at night. My last large painting of a night scene in Manhattan, Lafayette & Canal was based on photographs taken in the winter, when everyone was bundled up in black, brown or grey. But the summer brings out color and skin everywhere, so my last trip in late August was ideal for photography of the action on the stairs, sidewalks and in the street as trains going in both directions stopped overhead. I spent several hours at a time, several days in a row there, initially working the sidewalk in front of the stores looking up the stairs, the view in the photo above. Eventually I settled on the angle from halfway up the stairs across the street as seen in the painting. While I'd wait between trains for more people to be on the stairs, I'd buy a snack from one of the markets and pace slowly up and down the block.
One by one, the shopkeepers, or a neighborhood "enforcer" would amble up to me and stand a little too close, look me up and down and say "Who ya' workin' for ?" or "You from aroun' heah ?" My reply, "You like pizza ?" would put a stick in those spokes, to which they'd all reply, "Yeah, why ?" Then I'd pull a postcard of my painting Dollar Slice from my back pocket and tell them, "This is a painting I did of another shop I made famous, and yours is next." Sometimes it took a few tries before they got it, but eventually they'd smile and shake my hand, and several offered a soda or other refreshment to beat the heat & humidity. Nice.
My wonderful gallery representation: LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM
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