Edward Hopper’s simply titled “Corner Saloon,” from 1913, depicts the kind of regular city bar on an ordinary street corner that makes it almost impossible to figure out exactly where it was located.
The smokestacks give a hint: probably by a river.
And a caption from the Metropolitan Museum of Art website states that it’s the same corner Hopper sketched in 1921′s “Night Shadows” (right).
It’s an “actual location in New York . . . It is a downtown street near the riverfront, marked by a simple brick building with a painted sign,” the Met says. But where?
Tags: art of New York, Corner Saloon Hopper, Edward Hopper, Edward Hopper's New York, New York Corner Saloon, New York in 1913, New York street, Night Shadows Hopper
March 26, 2012 at 5:08 am |
You know, it kind of looks like it could be the future front of ‘Hanks Saloon,’ But that’s located on a corner in Boerum Hill in Brooklyn. Third ave. and Atlantic.
http://southbrooklynpost.com/2011/03/free-music-at-hanks-saloon/
March 26, 2012 at 7:01 am |
“Corner Saloon” could be based on a location along 1st Avenue around 42nd Street. Those smoke stacks in the distance resemble the old ConEd plant on First Ave, south of 41st Street, that’s since been converted. Of course that entire area has been redeveloped so it might be impossible to know for sure.
March 26, 2012 at 8:53 am |
It could be First Avenue and 14th Street, where the Hot & Crusty currently stands (Google Maps link: http://g.co/maps/b3959). If you stand on the southwest corner and look east, you will see the ConEd plant at 15th and Avenue D. The angle is slightly off since
March 26, 2012 at 8:55 am |
Sorry, previous comment got cut off somehow:
It could be First Avenue and 14th Street, where the Hot & Crusty currently stands (Google Maps link: http://g.co/maps/b3959). If you stand on the southwest corner and look east, you will see the ConEd plant at 15th and Avenue D. The angle is slightly off since Hopper paints it a bit further to the west but otherwise it would make sense in terms of the distance to the stacks, the size of the sidewalk, and the size of the street. But I don’t know if the ConEd plant dates that far back.
March 26, 2012 at 7:41 pm |
It’s possible that the saloon was in a building that was razed in the 1940′s for the building of Stuyvesant Town–Peter Cooper Village. We lost a pretty good chunk of neighborhood there when they built that.
March 27, 2012 at 1:21 am |
I’m reading this corner as being acutely-angled, so If you’re suggesting that the smoke stacks are across the river in Brooklyn, the only such blocks near the East River are those that run into Grand Street or St James Place– such as Madison, Henry, or East Broadway.
Or, perhaps it’s an imaginary place…?
March 27, 2012 at 11:24 pm |
Several paintings of the same location from different perspectives/lighting? Seems to me the first place to look would be to find out where Hopper was living those years.
March 28, 2012 at 3:39 pm |
Sounds like a mystery worth solving!
March 28, 2012 at 4:45 pm |
Not sure it helps, but Hopper was living at 3 Washington Square North in the 1920 Census.
Map of location: http://ow.ly/9VWik
He is on line 59 of this census page:
http://www.box.com/s/0d37f5439402edf47b31
While the buildings still on that street do have a similar feel, the window tops do not match and the building corners are squared off. Perhaps a stroll through the surrounding blocks might offer more clues.
I tried Google Street-viewing westward on Washington Square North, but nothing there matched. I suppose with older buildings in place, this intersection near 131 Waverly Place could be a possibility, if the angle of ‘Corner Saloon’ is looking up 6th Ave:
http://ow.ly/9VYkL
March 29, 2012 at 1:52 pm |
You guys should go check out the exploration that was done on Vanishing New York a couple of years ago. It was a 4 part story that begins here: http://vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com/2010/06/finding-nighthawks-part-1.html
March 31, 2012 at 10:35 pm |
Washington Square, eh? I had a theory that I discounted because I couldn’t account for the smokestacks: By the diagonal cut of the entryway, I think it resembles the building at the Southwest corner of Bleecker Street and LaGuardia Place. The site has a long history of drinking establishments. From at least the 1960′s into the 1980′s it was the Village Corner. Don’t know anything earlier than that.
Still can’t figure the smokestacks, though. They would appear to be pretty much smack-dab in the middle of what is now Soho.