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| | New York, Line by Line: From Broadway to the Battery | | | Music Style : | | General | | Record Label : | | Universe | | Release Date : | | 2009-10-06 | | Store Price : | | $19.95 | | Artistopia's Price: $13.57 | | Usually ships in 24 hours | | |
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Customer Reviews of This Album/CD |
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 Original Look at New York City
Submitted on: 2009-09-17 |
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It isn't easy finding new ways to view New York City, but the German-born artist who went by the name Robinson did just that in the 1960s and now again in an updated edition due out in October.
"New York Line by Line: From Broadway to the Battery" is an intensely detailed examination and rendering of the city's grand offerings of buildings and streets. The city's landmarks: Radio City Music Hall, Empire State Building, Lincoln Center and the United Nations building are among the more recognizable edifices that share space with simpler sketches of a museum garden, telephone booths and movie marquees.
At first glance, the drawings seem fairly easy and obvious. But a second look shows us the complexity of the work. Walls are drawn with hundreds of straight vertical lines to add shading; Windows in buildings near the Rockefeller Center ice rink are carefully lined and filled out, no matter how far from the focus and center of the drawing. Mott Street in Chinatown features pedestrians, cars, buildings, signs and fire escapes, and a lantern with clothing patterns consisting of lines running in different directions.
A view of downtown, from the Empire State Building, is mesmerizing in its detail. Row upon row of windows, buildings tucked against each other, just occasionally broken up by trees, fill the busy view of Manhattan, right down to the harbor filled with boats and the Statue of Liberty. (The original edition, published in 1967, was done before the World Trade Center went up, and, thankfully, apparently no one felt the urge to try to add the damaged site to this edition.)
That the drawings are a bit dated is part of its charm. The men in the sketches are all wearing hats; the women all seem to be in dresses. In fact, the people in general are better dressed than they are today.
This is a wonderful book for artists and anyone who loves New York. As an editor, I had only one beef and that is the discrepancy of the artist's year of death. Werne Kruse, Robinson's birth name, is listed on one page as having died in 1994 and another place as 1993. It's a bit jarring if that kind of information bothers you. If you just want to gaze on some intricate and closely executed hand illustrations, this could be the book for you. |
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