Born and bred New Yorker Jill Gill is equal parts artist and author, commentator and collector, a true inamorata of the ever-changing city. Since the mid-1950s, she has captured the buildings and streetscapes of the city (especially those about to be lost to urban renewal) in a series of more than 100 watercolor and ink paintings. The New York she portrays is one of classic movies, vintage postcards, and hand-painted wall advertisements.
The scenes in ‘Site Lines: Lost New York, 1954–2022’ extend from Midtown South, home of the artist from the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s, to the Upper East Side, where she and her family lived in a historic Rhinelander townhouse. Along the way she passes through Midtown, including storied Fifth Avenue and the Theater District, and the Upper West Side.
Her work includes buildings both important and unimportant that would otherwise have been lost to memory: the glorious Helen Hayes Theater, the Art Deco Horn & Hardart Automat on 57th Street, and blocks upon blocks of ordinary yet distinctive retail and commercial structures. In addition, Gill includes buildings that have themselves been quietly observing the changing city, often changing along with it: St. Bart’s, the Villard Houses, and MoMA before it “ate” 53rd Street. Each scene is accompanied by text that blends in-depth research with first-hand observation.
8 Introduction
10 How My Mother Saved New York
John Freeman Gill
12 The City in Perspective
Marc Hacker
15 MIDTOWN SOUTH
SECOND AVENUE
22nd Street to 28th Street
37 MIDTOWN SOUTH
THIRD AVENUE
21st Street to 34th Street
61 MIDTOWN
THIRD AVENUE
40th Street to 60th Street
105 MIDTOWN
MADISON AVENUE
48th Street to 60th Street
141 MIDTOWN WEST
Times Square to 57th Street
177 UPPER EAST SIDE
69th Street to 88th Street
197 UPPER WEST SIDE
60th Street to 95th Street
220 Epilogue
226 Acknowledgments
228 Bibliography
ISBN
9781957183695Title
Site Lines LOST NEW YORK, 1954–2022Author
Jill GillPublisher
Goff BooksPublication year
2023Binding
HardcoverLanguage
English
