By Kenn Sava, with a tip of my Fedora to Edward Hopper.
Having Celebrated Ten Years of NighthawkNYC.com, here, I decided to take a selected look back at what you saw when you looked above what I’ve written here since July 15, 2015: the Banners I’ve run from Day 1.
Speaking of Day 1, July 15, 2015…Remember this?
Banner #1. July 15, 2015. Location- Somewhere Downtown, late. My adaptation of Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks, 1942, into a “Self-Portrait,” as I said, here. My piece on decades of looking for the site of the REAL Nighthawks, which remains my most popular piece ever, is here.
Banner #2 – NighthawkNYC Version 2.0 in honor of the First Anniversary, July 15, 2016, I decided to create my own version.
Banner #40b – My working file since July, 2016. The blue lines are the ghosts of all the layers that have been added to this image the past eight years! As seen below…
Banner #3. Night flowers. In summer, 2023, this Deli became a cannabis shop…
Banner #4 – Outside Ai Weiwei’s powerful show Laundromat on the Refugee Crisis
Banner #5 – Chelsea, February, 2017. Seeing this reminded me of my boxed-in upbringing, as I wrote in my 10th Anniversary of Cancer treatment piece. This space is now the location of the Hauser & Wirth mega-gallery.
Banner #6 – The High Line, March, 2017. January, February and early March are the only times I’ll hit the High Line, which is too crowded the rest of the year. I’ve still never been to Hudson Yards (15 blocks behind me here). By choice.
Banner #7 – The Strand Bookstore, minutes after closing, December, 2017, back when it closed at 10:30pm every night. Not at 8pm as it does now!
Banner #8 – Madison Square, January, 2018
Banner #8 – Unpublished experiment featuring my dear friends, the Birdies from my “On The Fence” series, seen on their infamous perch on West 24th Street.
Banner #11 – The Entrance to Michelangelo at The Met, February, 2018. Behind the screen is the faux scaffolding for the Sistine Ceiling section.
Banner #18 – Hell’s Kitchen, March, 2018
Banner #21 – 7th Avenue, April, 2018. A sort of “nighthawks” at the all-night coffee house…
Banner #23 – 18th Street, May, 2018
Banner #11 – The steam pipe explosion on 5th Avenue. Looking uptown from 5th Avenue and 18th Street to the Empire State Building as repairs to the surrounding buildings damaged by the explosion continues, July 26, 2018.
Banner #22 – Meatpacking District, September, 2018,
Banner #25 – Live on the D Train, November, 2018
Banner #32 – March, 2019, West 19th Street. My banner as it was before everything hit the fan. I ran this one longer than any other so far.
Banner #32a – March 22, 2020. The covid shutdown is a week old. I’m home, like everyone else.
Banner #32b – July 20, 2020. NighthawkNYC.com is 5 years old! Restaurants & cafes are allowed to open for take out and delivery orders, only.
Banner #34 – Unpublished experiment in response to everything being boarded up here. It showed a lack of trust in the community, their customers, which angered me when I was living with all of it, so I made it as a joke but didn’t run it.
May 3, 2021 – The vaccine has kicked in and I’ve returned after a year away from the banner. At least to Eddie’s Cafe. I had yet to go inside any other restaurant.
Banner 32c – NighthawkNYC.com is 6! July, 2021. Twyla’s quote still fits.
Banner #26 – With Richard Estes Double Self-Portrait, May, 2022.
Banner #27 – Parking Eddie’s Cafe in the middle of 6th Avenue in the Flatiron facing south, June, 2022, One World Trade Center next to my left ear. Working on that logo!
If you had told me at a number of points this past year, I’d be hanging a “7 Years” Banner, I’d have seriously doubted it!
August, 2022. On East 42nd Street.
October, 2022. From Chelsea Piers looking south.
February, 2023. Sunset from Hudson River Park.
June 9, 2023. Edward Hopper’s New York Corner, 1913, one of my favorites in Edward Hopper’s New York, my obsession at the time, at the Whitney Museum.
July 15, 2023. NighthawkNYC.com turns 8 years old!
August 28, 2023- Pondering Rod Penner’s 212/House with Snow, 1998. The 31st Banner I’ve run.
September 22nd, 2023. The view from the MoMA/PS1 Courtyard, LIC, NY, in 20022.
December 17, 2023. Looking north on 5th Avenue. Views of the Empire State Building from the south are disappearing due to new construction. Here, the building is partially hidden by a new tower going up just to the right of it in this view. Oh, and I was named a Finalist for the 2023 Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Award.
January 27, 2024. Slowly getting back on my feet after a bad illness, this harkens back to my late summer trips to the Guggenheim to see Sarah Sze: Timelapse.
March 8, 2024. Banner 51- Trees in Clement Moore Park, February, 2024. Finally back on my feet after a rough six-week illness, this picture captured how I was feeling.
April 9, 2024. Kobra’s Mural on 10th Avenue, his idea of a “Mount Rushmore” for the Chelsea Art District which it directly faces. I’m not sure who would be on my Art Mt. Rushmore. Who’s on yours?
July 15, 2024. Banner 60- NighthawkNYC.com is 9!
September 4, 2024, the day I was diagnosed with ovid for the first time, a look at better times. Here I am living a dream, taking the place of my alter-ego in this fabulous recreation of Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks Diner, which I wrote about here. I named this site after that guy in the Painting that no one ever talks about (a “nighthawk.” The Painting is titled Nighthawks). My thanks to the iconic Lucas for the coffee and convo and Nilo for the priceless pic. By the way! The frame is the ACTUAL frame that housed Nighthawks when I saw it last at Hopper Drawing at the old Whitney in 2013!
September 27, 2024- Unable to find a way to survive financially from writing, I announced on Instagram that I was taking a break from Art writing. I left 3 pieces unfinished including my NoteWorthy Art & PhotoBooks of the 21st Century (thus far) pieces.
April 16, 2025- The “Golden Oof,” named for my Avatar, the statuette I’ve had made for my NoteWorthy Art & PhotoBook Lists perched on my picture of the Brooklyn Bridge shot from the Brooklyn side before the pandemic. This Oof is for my NoteWorthy Art & PhotoBooks of the 21st Century (thus far) pieces. After six months of hard work, this banner honors my Art Book piece FINALLY being published today.
June 15, 2025- Banner 64a marks the completion of two pieces that took 9 months of hard work built on 25 years of equally hard looking. The twin “Golden Oofs” fly over a fiery sunset Photo by my Muse, Lana Hattan, 2025.
July 15, 2025. Banner 65 marks 10 Years of NighthawkNYC.com! By the way, the frame is the actual frame of Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks!
That makes it 41 banners I’ve run- about 4 a year. It turns out to have been a bit of a circuitous journey, with my getting to live out my dream seen in Banner #1 ten years ago.
Thanks to all those who’ve seen one of them, most of them, even all of them along the way!
*-Soundtrack for this Post is “I Contain Multitudes,” by Bob Dylan from Rough and Rowdy Ways, 2020.
NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 9 years, during which 300 full length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to allow me to continue below. Thank you, Kenn.
You can also support it by buying Art, Art & Photography books, and Music from my collection! Art & Books may be found here. Music here and here.
Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.