This is one of those Saturday subway paintings. I used to get on any subway and go someplace new. This time it happened to be the PATH train, the one that goes to New Jersey and it was cheaper than the other subways. I went from the World Trade Center to the first stop, which is Hoboken, New Jersey, Frank Sinatra’s birthplace. The views from there of lower Manhattan are fantastic. The original painting is a little smaller, realistic and unfinished. This was in 1978. I used to paint these cityscapes with the local flavor. The realistic painting not only has the majestic cityscape backdrop, but also has a little bit of the dock showing from where I painted. On that summer day, that dock had people fishing, picnicking and just hanging out. There was even a child riding a tricycle, which is all there in the original cityscape.

Right after the 9/11, I pulled out all the dozen or so, paintings that I had painted of New York. In most of the Manhattan paintings, the World Trade Towers are always visible, as they were the tallest structures on the island. The above mentioned realistic unfinished painting was one of those New York paintings. I wanted to finish that painting when I had pulled out all my New York paintings after the 9/11. However, I realized that if I finish it, I was going to loose that on sight, plain air painting look and my memories of that day. I decided to leave that painting alone and do a new one, same exact view, but this time in my linear style. That is how this painting came about. This time I wanted the emphasis on the skyline with the World Trade Towers. As a result, I lost that dock with all the people and the kid on the tricycle in the foreground. That brought out the massiveness of the Hudson River. The zip in the sky represents the thoughts the painting provokes in the viewer.