New York City sketchbook

We had a celebratory family holiday in New York City a few months ago. Coronavirus was in the news of course, but was yet to really hit either the US or the UK, where we flew from. Less than a month after we returned home, both New York and London were in lockdown.

Our stay there was almost completely untouched by the disastrous events that were to come: there was hand-sanitiser in our hotel lobby, but we crowded into museums, squares, the subway, bars and restaurants, and face masks were a rarity.

These are the drawings from my New York City A5 sketchbook 2020, a snapshot of a city so soon before it largely closed down and life changed. I've spared you the pages of diary entries that intersperse the drawings. We feel lucky to have managed to visit when we did, and send our love to a city that we remember fondly in these tough times.

Lower East Side, seventh floor looking east

Delancey and Allen Streets, New York City

Breakfast at Russ & Daughters, Orchard Street

Lower East Side rooftops

Manhattan from Brooklyn Bridge Park I

Manhattan from Brooklyn Bridge Park II

Delancey Street subway

From the Empire State Building looking north(ish)

From the Empire State Building looking north-east

MacDougal Street cafe, Manhattan

The new Essex Market, Lower East Side

Central Park skyline

Katz's deli, crammed

Ludlow Street, Lower East Side, and a bridge

Washington Square, New York City

Three bridges: Brooklyn, Manhattan, Williamsburg

Remedy Diner, East Houston Street

Lower East Side from floor 14 (an added page)

Room 514 in the Museum of Modern Art: Man Ray's
Chess Set (1920-26), Brancusi's Blond Negress II
(1933) and Tarsila do Amaral's The Moon (1928).
And a window with a view

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