Clouds over Hearst Tower l, NYC 2009

"Hell's Kitchen" generally refers to the area from 34th to 59th Streets. Here, two landmarks reside – the New Yorker Hotel and the dynamic Manhattan Center building. Included in the transition area on Eighth Avenue are the Port Authority Bus Terminal at 42nd Street, the Pride of Manhattan Fire Station from which 15 firefighters died at the World Trade Center, several theatres including Studio 54, the original soup stand of Seinfeld's "The Soup Nazi"' and the Hearst Tower......The six-story base of the headquarters building was commissioned by the founder, William Randolph Hearst, and awarded to the architect Joseph Urban. The building was completed in 1928 at a cost of $2 million and contained 40,000 square feet. The original cast stone facade has been preserved in the new design as a designated Landmark site. Originally built as the base for a proposed skyscraper, the construction of the tower was postponed due to the Great Depression. The new tower addition was completed nearly eighty years later, and 2,000 Hearst employees moved in on June 26, 2006. Hearst Tower is the first "green" high-rise office building completed in New York City, with a number of environmental considerations built into the plan. Walking to a continuing education meeting on 55th and 9th one summer evening I dodged a rain storm to find these unique and picturesque cloud formations over Hell's Kitchen and the Hearst Tower.....available as 8 x 11 or 11 x 17 b & w or color photo or watercolor or painted print on Hahnemuhle Museum Etching Fine Art Inkjet Paper, and each photograph or print is personally approved and hand-signed by me, the artist.