HOW TO SEE NEW YORK

When I was living in Greenpoint, Brooklyn I used to walk home along the edge of the East River gazing at the skyline of Manhattan, daydreaming of taking the city by storm. Until then I worked part-time at a textile company in midtown Manhattan where after work I would go down to the Saloon Bar at Grand Central Oyster Bar. There I would have to have a couple of extremely dry martinis during happy hour. The menu at the Oyster Bar is on a very large piece of white paper, and during one evening of Martinis I removed my glasses and gazed at the extensive wine list that appeared to become the skyline of Manhattan. I thought of all of the poetic implications and decided to get to work on making this a reality or in my case a work of art. My initial aspirations were very grand, but in the end after 15 years of thinking of the work, I had an opportunity to scale the wine list for a museum show and the distortion occurred and there on the wall was my Manhattan.