Lamb, beef, and eggs are on the menu board on the sidewalk. Inside, the room is lit up, and people appear to be sitting together, or at least in close proximity to one another.
But this lone figure standing on the snowy sidewalk outside an all-night cafe in New York circa 1900 isn’t part of it. He’s an emblem of the 24-hour, modernized city, a New York with more than three million residents divided and isolated.
Maybe he can’t afford to go in; perhaps it’s not his class or crowd. Painter Everett Shinn, a member of the Ashcan School — artists who focused on the grittier side of urban life — isn’t letting us read the man’s face for clues.
Shinn had a studio on Waverly Place. Could the current occupant of this cafe be Joe Coffee at 141 Waverly?
Tags: Everett Shinn Open All Night Cafe, Everett Shinn painting, New York Everett Shinn, Waverly Place, Waverly Place West Village
Ephemeral New York 
May 8, 2017 at 5:31 am |
It is so sad. I am on my way to the City next week. I can’t wait! I always remember the very sad parts every time I am there! This time; I am thrilled to be able to see Pale Male and his 8th mate (27 years!!) have 3 baby hawks in their nest above Central Park on that fancy building!
They are really called eyasses!
Yay Pale Male!
May 8, 2017 at 5:32 am |
I LOVE YOUR BLOG!!!
May 9, 2017 at 3:35 am |
Thanks Penelope—I hope you’re lucky enough to see our urban hawks!
May 9, 2017 at 4:49 am
I am making a point! I met the photographer who has been photographing him for 26 years at least! Lincoln Karim! How lucky you are to have him again….3 babies!
May 9, 2017 at 7:15 pm |
Could this painting been the inspiration for Edward Hopper’s NIGHTHAWKS painting?
May 10, 2017 at 4:38 am |
It could be one of the cafes and diners that inspired Hopper.
September 23, 2019 at 6:57 am |
[…] Ashcan artist Everett Shinn painted this woman seemingly spellbound by the stylish mannequins behind a department store window, […]
December 14, 2020 at 2:41 am |
[…] school painter Everett Shinn gravitated toward New York’s underdogs: the lonely, the lost, the dreamers, and those who appear to be battered by life’s […]
December 14, 2020 at 5:16 am |
[…] school painter Everett Shinn gravitated toward New York’s underdogs: the lonely, the lost, the dreamers, and those who appear to be battered by life’s […]
May 19, 2022 at 5:19 am |
[…] night, the elevated invited intrigue. Everett Shinn, former newspaper illustrator best known as a member of the Ashcan School of social realism […]