Untitled (New York Scene) 

Curator: So evocative! There's a sort of somber elegance to this image; the hatching is incredibly precise, the skyscrapers recede with a hazy kind of dignity... I'd say it’s rather affecting. Editor: Indeed! Here we have George Stimmel’s “Untitled (New York Scene).” While its precise date remains unconfirmed, this drawing, etching, and print captures a pivotal moment of urban transformation, likely from the early to mid-20th century. Curator: Tell me more about that transformation, what makes it “pivotal”? Editor: Look at the visual grammar! The elevated train line dominates, physically and symbolically dividing the space. Above, the monumental skyscrapers suggest aspiration, ambition, the capitalist drive skyward. But below, the street-level scene hints at something less idealized: truck traffic, cramped spaces, the more grounded realities of the city. The el train, then, serves as a kind of gate, the point where we confront different facets of progress. Curator: Yes, there is certainly something gate-like here: That ironwork possesses such rigidity, such pattern, especially against the hazy, almost ghosted skylines beyond! I also feel a strong current of classic urban iconography present here, specifically in how public transport like this references turn-of-the-century social anxieties... How this image is really of that historical tension and less simply "New York." Editor: Exactly, these infrastructures take on outsized symbolic power! I might even add a sense of collective tension—are we looking at an optimistic future or a world burdened by its relentless pace of development? Those line techniques Stimmel employed really speak to the human need to represent something far bigger. Curator: A tension, though! Even the title is charged. It resists specification; perhaps suggesting the experiences within were far bigger and broader. The artist resists that sort of constraint. Editor: So instead it becomes all of New York, the essence of that place and time. Well, after this conversation I will surely spend time thinking about that. Thanks. Curator: Absolutely. An experience far broader and, therefore, perhaps, also more accessible. Thanks, it has been illuminating for me as well.