TUDOR CITY ART: Mark Freeman

 Looking west along 42nd St. from the East River -- Tudor City, the News and Chanin Buildings.

This wonderful sketch by Mark Freeman is one of a series of Manhattan on the rise made by the artist between 1929-1932, while he was a student at Columbia's School of Architecture. Both historic and poetic, these drawings delineate the dawn of modernist architecture in Manhattan. Freeman sketched Tudor City in August, 1932, perhaps from a boat in the East River.

The view shows the eastern walls of No. 5, No. 25, No. 45 and the Woodstock. At the end of 42nd St. (bottom center), a ramp leads down to the East River, presumably for the offloading of livestock and meatpacking goods. The slaughterhouse district along First Ave. was then in full throttle.