A dazzling sunset from a West 23rd Street roof

“Sunset, West Twenty-Third Street,” completed in 1906, is another evocative take on the city by John Sloan, with a solitary figure, dramatic sky, and representations of daily life: laundry on a line.

Sloan had a thing for the triple combo of women, rooftops, and laundry, as these paintings reveal.

“A study of dramatic beauty and unexpected tranquility in an undistinguished urban landscape, ‘Sunset, West Twenty-third Street,’ displays Sloan’s ability early in his career to transform a utilitarian setting into a more sublime vista.”

That’s from the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, which has the painting in its collection.

“Although ‘Sunset, West Twenty-third Street’ could easily be understood as an image of an anonymous woman distracted from her laundry, the figure represented is the artist’s wife, Dolly, on the rooftop of the building that housed his studio.”

Where was his studio? At 165 West 23rd, between Sixth and Seventh Avenues. Here it is today via Google.

[Photo: John Sloan, 1891]

The colossal factory anchoring West 23rd Street

Used to be that factories were built along the waterfront, like this gigantic red-brick beauty at the Hudson River end of 23rd Street.

It was the headquarters of Christy, Constant & Co., a wallpaper manufacturing firm; the lithograph dates to the 1860s.

Now, our waterfront is devoted to leisure. Chelsea Piers, Hudson River Park, and the High Line are the main attractions around the factory site.