Art in the City – The Slip: The New York City Street That Changed American Art Forever by Prudence Peiffer

Dense and packed with detail, The Slip: The New York City Street That Changed American Art Forever presents a view of American art as created and practiced by a group of emerging artists of the late 1950s and early 1960s, including Ellsworth Kelly, Robert Indiana, Jack Youngerman and others, who had (eventually) a strong impact on modern art. These artists, several of whom served in World War II and studied in Paris courtesy of the G.I. Bill, found their way to Coenties Slip, a small street off the East River in Lower Manhattan, where they settled and worked in the deteriorating loft and other nineteenth century buildings that were once central to the shipping trade that was once so important to the city's commerce. 

By the time they arrived, the docks around South and Water Streets and vicinity were collapsing into the river, and the area was largely deserted and/or ignored – though a decade or so later would be transformed by large scale development. 

It was an isolated part of the city that seemed frozen in time, but the seeds of change were already in place, even as the artists moved in, and their sojourn was fairly short-lived, as the buildings were already being condemned. It was an area of potential that had been identified by the powerful Robert Moses, who built and also destroyed so much of New York's and Long Island's roads and "parkways", and in fact, many of the most interesting sections of the book discuss his enterprises in his multiple city government roles and his clashes with the preservationist Jane Jacobs, who fortunately stepped in to shed light on Moses's many excesses.

While I was interested in the background and work of the artists, there was far too much attention given to their personal lives and living arrangements, the presentation of which I found to be dull and somewhat repetitive, and after the introductory chapters that presented them, while I dutifully read on, I was hoping to learn more than I did about the art, and perhaps to see more photos of their work. What photos that were included are black and white, many casual portraits of the artists, individually and in groups, and it seems as though it would have been possible and more impactful to have included color images of the works, many of which could have been photographed in museums, galleries, and private collections.