New Kid on the Block: Investigating West 44th’s Artist in Residence
The artist appeared on our block two weeks ago. A lean man with inky fingers covered in silver rings, he wore a cap, a small button fastened to the bottom of his shirt—“I love porn”—and a menthol-flavored Marlboro tucked behind one ear. He would arrive around 9 a.m., arrange his scroll of paper, his pot of ink and his various clips on the sidewalk between The Observer offices and the adjacent Japanese barbecue joint, remaining there, painting intently, until 6 or 7 p.m. As he painted, he scrunched himself into contorted positions and seemed not to take breaks or register the passersby, who invariably stared.
We were curious about the new arrival on our block. Though of course West 44th between Eighth and Ninth Avenues hardly belongs to us alone. We share it with a lumber yard, a theatrical supply company, the Intercontinental Hotel, several parking lots and a convenience store whose clientele appear to buy nothing but lottery tickets. And, as we recently learned, we also share it with the dingy walk-up where Cuban novelist and poet Reinaldo Arenas spent the last years of his life and committed suicide in 1990 at age 47, impoverished and suffering from AIDS. Read More
