Fifty years ago this month, The New Yorker of April 14, 1973 featured a cover by Charles E. Martin, or C.E.M. as he signed it. Martin's cover depicted an East River view on an overcast day. A lone bench on the John Finley Walk faces the Roosevelt Island Lighthouse with Astoria, Queens beyond it. The muted colors bring out the blue of the river. Recently, I took a stroll on the Upper East Side to stand where Martin must have stood and photograph the view as he must have seen it. I was off by a few steps, but not much more.
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| Charles E. Martin The New Yorker, April 14, 1972 |
July 8, 2024 Update: I see that Carl Schurz Park historian Jeffrey B. Evans had this idea first and took his own matching photo back in 2013. He did a much better job, I think, and the change of scale I remarked on seems far less noteworthy here.
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| https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/tlpotr/54491558 |
Note: Just in case others too are in the habit of photographing real-life New Yorker magazine cover vantage points, please send such efforts to my email address.
The Attempted Bloggery Centennial Posts 💯
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Blog Post No. 200: A Shaggy Dog Story
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Blog Post No. 3400: The 1942 Navy Relief Show Program
Blog Post No. 3500: William Steig's "What is Art?"
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