Another Cass Gilbert sketch, “Looking west from corner 5th ave + 42nd St”, from June 1917.
Based on the angle, he was standing on the northwestern corner of the intersection. The generally most interesting building nearby is the New York Public Library; the dark scribbles on the left most likely are meant to be the trees in Bryant Park, behind (west of) the library. What has obviously captured Gilbert’s attention is the skyscraper in the medium distance, which is 130 West 42nd Street, the Bush Tower. This was an office and showroom building associated with Bush Terminal in Brooklyn, a private freight-handling facility. The building is recognizable mostly through the deep light court on its east lot-line wall:
Bush Tower was one of the vaguely gothic skyscrapers inspired at least in part by Gilbert’s work, particularly his designs for the Woolworth Building and 90 West Street. That may be what inspired him to sketch it, standing in the street. Given how many random little sketches like this there are in the Library of Congress collection, drawing what he saw while walking around seems pretty clearly to have been part of his design process.
But ultimately I’m less interested in Bush Tower and Gilbert’s impression of Bush Tower than am in this sketch. He used a blunt line – probably just a soft pencil – and made little effort to capture detail of the building, but as soon as I saw the sketch I knew which building it was, as clearly as if he had taken a photograph. I’m impressed by this in part because I can’t do it. I can make an engineering diagram – a load-path sketch, for example – just fine and I can draft in CAD. My handwriting has deteriorated because I’ve almost entirely switched from writing to typing, but my sketch line-work is okay. But I can’t draw any better than the average random person on the street, so his ability to so readily capture the essence of a building floors me.
You must be logged in to post a comment.