New York City Rooftops – West Village Art Print

Description

The title of this New York City rooftops print is actually a bit of an inside joke. On my first adventure in NYC, I took a number of tour bus rides around the city. One turned out to have a rather interesting guide.

Her commentary was offbeat to begin with, but then misfortune struck. There was a road block and she ended up on streets for which she had nothing prepared to say. Flustered as she looked out the windows of the bus, she uttered, ‘this is… this is… generic New York City…’

For the rest of my trip, this was how I addressed scenes like this, skylines, street scenes, anything that seemed like quintessential New York City would apply as an adjective became Generic New York City.

This particular art print of the New York City rooftops was not from a ride with that bus guide but it was from the top of an open air bus. And when I first added this to my print collection years ago, I had no idea where it was but it was so clearly New York City that ‘Generic New York City’ seemed apt. More recently I started hunting for where exactly this view of the New York City rooftops actually was. After a good deal of time looking at visual maps of Manhattan and pictures I had taken before and after it, I was finally able to identify this as the corner of 7th Avenue and 14th Street in the West Village. So, a long time personal mystery solved, but these old pre-war apartment buildings will always be Generic New York City to me.

Look at those cool water towers, the great architectural details of the different buildings, this is so utterly New York City that it practically bleeds Manhattan from every brick. Don’t you agree?