York Avenue, Sunday Morning

Armin Landeck

Trained as an architect, Armin Landeck, like many artists of the time, recorded the changing New York architecture. Like the previous Ashcan School artists Landeck often was inspired by the rooftops, tenements and demolition that he saw in the ever-changing city.

This view of Manhattan was from 62nd Street and York Avenue, looking north. With this image Landeck addresses the infrastructure and the building of Manhattan. The massive structure at the right is the Queensboro Bridge, to the left are the large gas tanks at York Avenue. The large, white building in the distance is the newly finished (1939) Memorial Hospital (now Sloan Kettering Cancer Center) on York Avenue between 67th and 68th Streets.

Landeck commented about this work: "I worked up in that area. They were just building the Medical Center at that time."

The composition leads the viewer from the dark reality of the city to the gleaming future in the distance, in this case, a place to find a potential cure for some of the problems created in part by the increasing traffic and heating in Manhattan during the Great Depression (1929-1939).