Painting: Postcard from Alphabet City

This is a painting that I did last year, but I updated this year after revisiting Alphabet City during this dastardly pandemic. Why? Because once again, Alphabet City met me with great colors and happiness. Much needed during this time.

About this Painting

When most visitors think of New York, they think of Manhattan and Times Square. My Dad lived in the Upper West Side, so that’s where I spent most of my youth… and at his office in the West Village. So when my daughter moved to NY, I was surprised when she and her friends all moved to Alphabet City. After having spent time kicking around, I fell in love with the zigzagging fire escapes, elaborate cornices and chain-linked parks.

Details in the Painting

Detail One. The sun shining over the little brownstones in Alphabet City.

Tompkins Square Park is just one of those must-visit places for those who want to experience NYC as an insider.  It has a long history – noted in its famous monuments (and was pivotal in the Vietnam War demonstrations in the 1960’s).  This is fun people watching and fabulous for dog-watching.  The park had the first dog run in NYC and also has a Halloween Dog Parade that rivals no other.

Detail Two. The not-so-busy Avenue B in the morning.

Pardon My French, a restaurant on 103 Avenue B, offers up some exquisite Vol au Vent Aux Coeur Poulet that will make your stomach think you’re in France, even though your eyes and ears experience Alphabet City.

Detail Three. Street signs and street lights in Alphabet City.

The MoRUS (Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space) has a real cool tour called the Radical Walking Tour, were people learn about draft dodgers from the Civil War on up, Black Panthers, Hippies, Yippies and more.

Detail Four. The crazy sixties, memorialized with thoughts of the hippies and yippies in Tompkins Square Park.

On December 23, 1999, my old friend, Dennis Dalyrmple, one of the founding members of the Yippies, wrote this letter to the New York Times: 

To the Editor:

Kindly permit this aging hippie to set the record straight with regard to ”Museum Gives Hippie Stuff the Acid Test” (Dec. 16). Although the Merry Prankster Wavy Gravy (a k a Hugh Romney) played a pivotal role in the activities surrounding the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago, neither he nor his Hog Farm Commune ran the pig for president. Yippies, the late Jerry Rubin, the late folk singer Phil Ochs, Wolfe Lowenthal, Stew Albert and yours truly (the last three being very much alive and kicking, thank you) nominated our pig, the distinguished Pigesus, for president on Aug. 30, 1968. We, including our candidate, were arrested before we could even finish singing ”The Star-Spangled Banner.” The other one won at the Convention Center. The rest is history.

DENNIS DALRYMPLE

New York

This is a Contemporary Abstract Figurative Expressionism with Mark Making made on canvas with acrylic paints, oil pastels and charcoal on canvas – it is a painting that tells a story.

[Art collectors, art curators, interior designers looking for cyan colorway, blue colorway, pink colorway, and people looking for hotel art or art for films might enjoy this post.]

Copyright © 2020  Sarah Gilbert Fox All rights reserved