![]() ![]() Skyscrapers began to emerge in the US in the late 19th Century, predominantly in Chicago and New York, as technical improvements allowed for the development of steel framed buildings which could hit greater heights, without impractical thickness on the lower floors. ![]() While the city as a haven for outsiders and a place in which one can truly find oneself, if one only has the courage, is eloquently examined in Wallace Thurman’s classic novel of the Harlem Renaissance, The Blacker the Berry. The lure of Broadway and the desire to make it big is gloriously described in the surprisingly gritty film 42nd Street. Georgia O’Keeffe encapsulates the ingenuity and ambition of New York in her series of skyscraper paintings, their soaring structures being the architectural embodiment of reaching for the sky. The three works chosen here all date from the interwar years, a period that saw the city’s enduring personality take hold. From the glorious peaks of the Roaring Twenties to the squalor and destitution of the 1970s, it seems that no aspect of the city’s life has gone unexplored by writers, painters or filmmakers. New York is without doubt one of the most dynamic, diverse and creative cities in the world, a cultural centre of almost mythic proportions, celebrated by generations of artists for its unparalleled extremes of wealth and poverty, glamour and grime. The choices are in no way intended to be definitive but rather aim to breathe new life into both cities and artworks that we often think we know so well, and in doing so underline the value of culture in enhancing our appreciation of the world around us. ![]() Here, we take a book, a film and a visual artwork, and use them to look at a particular aspect of a city’s identity at a particular time. But while cultural works often have cities at their centre, the manner in which they can be explored in order to further our understanding of that city is often undervalued. Over time they become integral to that city’s identity, part of its fabric and how it is perceived in the popular imagination. A city and the cultural works it inspires are inextricably linked. ![]()
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