The Sherry-Netherland Hotel

The Sherry-Netherland Hotel, at the corner of 5th Ave. and 59th Street. Built in 1927, it is a fancy-schmancy hotel/residence, with rooms renting for $500-$1700/night and units selling for up to $95 million. Though it's a hotel, it only has 54 hotel rooms and suites. Most of it is comprised by 165 co-op apartments, though those owners may then rent out their apartments, like an Airbnb for the 1%.  Past residents included Barbara Streisand, George Burns, Francis Ford Coppola, Diana Ross, and Judge Judy, and David Bowie held court there for a year in 1974.

The building itself is not a NYC landmark, but the clock in front of it is for some reason, and it is part of the Upper East Side Historic District.

The building was built by Louis Sherry, an ice cream magnate, and Lucius Boomer, a hotel operator. Sherry purchased the exclusive New Netherlands Hotel, then demolished it to build his skyscraper. Sherry retained the Netherlands name to maintain its connotations of luxury and elitism, and so named the hotel The Sherry-Netherland. Sherry died in 1926, before the building even opened, but Sherry's Chocolates are still placed on the table in each guest room.

It was designed by the firms of Schultze & Weaver and Buchman & Kahn in a neo-Romanesque and Renaissance style. Completed in 1927, it was the world's tallest apartment building at the time at 38 stories, 560 feet high, and was one of the first in New York City to be built using a steel frame. The neo-Romanesque/Neo-Gothic roofline disguises the water tower. One conspicuous feature is that it lacks the usual hotel lobby bar. Built during Prohibition, it was decided that there was no need to waste the real estate to accommodate a then-illegal activity.

While still under construction, the upper floors suffered a huge fire when a wooden scaffold caught on fire months before it opened. The elevators were not fully functional and the standpipes failed to deliver enough water pressure for firefighters to combat the blaze. The conflagration was visible for miles around, and thousands of people watched until the fire burned itself out. You can see film footage of the fire at this site. Nonetheless, the building was completed and opened on schedule, with apartments renting for $20,000-$30,000 a year.

Photo from NY Times

This company used the fire to pitch their paint!

Two process shots. Initially drawn in pencil, then finished in black ink with pigma micron pens.

The building is filled in with masking fluid before I lay in the sky with watercolor washes. The color on the building is then applied with watercolor pencils.

Historical sources:

NY Times - The Night A Hotel Turned Into A Torch

Storied Hotels

Historic Hotels - Then And Now

BNY OHNY

For real, the last couple of drawings from the Brooklyn Navy Yard for the foreseeable future. I did these, as well as a couple at Woodside Press, during a visit during Open House New York in October.


Building 313, the former Ship Superintendent's Office and Tool room, built 1942. I think it's unused today. The 19th century dahlgren gun I drew sits outside this building.

A barge moored at Dock 72. Probably the biggest change from when I was a Visiting Artist and this subsequent visit was that the giant WeWork building site had been opened. When I was in the Visiting Artist Program, this dock was fenced off for construction. It's now accessible and has a stop for the NYC Ferry service.

A giant buoy on that same ferry. It wasn't until I spent so much time around these docks that I realized how many old tires are used by the maritime industry. Are these tires bought new, or is it a secondary market for old tires?

MOMA View

The view from the Sculpture Garden at the Museum of Modern Art. From foreground to back: The University Club, the Peninsula Hotel, Philip Johnson's AT&T Building, and in the back, the super-tall 432 Park Ave.

I've been back to doing some urban sketching again, but my subject matter has changed somewhat. Much more fancy neoclassical buildings, less dilapidated industrial remnants. This is because I've been working full-time at MoMA since June, so most of my time is spent in midtown Manhattan, and much less time to go exploring off-the-beaten-path areas in the far corners of the boroughs.

Road work

Excavator parked on Prospect Ave. I always enjoy drawing construction machines. They have all the intricate gears and hoses and doo-dads that I love to draw, even as I wonder what they actually do. But they also often have surprisingly elegant shapes in them, like the curve of the arm on this machine.