Painting the Town -- Museum of the City of New York

In this naive depiction of one of midtown Manhattan's celebrated landmarks and tourist attractions, the artist has reduced the archetypal skyscrapers, which in actuality overshadow the skating rink, to a minor role and has magnified the rink to appear as the scene's dominant pictorial element. This inversion emphasizes the intended purpose of Rockefeller Center's plan -to use an open area to entice people into its complex of large buildings and shops.

Rockefeller Center was built during the Great Depression on a site bounded by 48th and 51st Streets and Fifth and Sixth Avenues, where, in 1802, New York's first botanical garden had been established by Dr. David Hosack. Hosack sold the fourteen-acre Elgin Garden to New York State in 1814, the same year the state granted the property to Columbia College in exchange for extensive acreage that Columbia held in New Hampshire.¹ When the Rockefeller Center outdoor skating rink opened to the public on Christmas Day, 1936, it earned the distinction of being the first artificial outdoor skating rink on Fifth Avenue. For three years thereafter, the freezing unit for generating ice was removed at the end of each season, making way for an outdoor cafe in warmer weather. In 1939 a permanent freezing unit was installed, buried within a terrazzo floor that also served as the cafe flooring, thereby ending the labor involved in converting the rink to a dining area. Anecdotal information suggests that the artist's roller-skating figures recall a brief period in the rink's history before its exclusive dedication to ice skating and its use as a summer restaurant.

Israel Litwak, who arrived in New York City from Odessa, Russia, in 1903, worked as a cabinetmaker until his retirement in the late 1930s. To occupy himself in retirement, he taught himself to draw, and when he considered his work enough improved, he offered two works to the Brooklyn Museum. Museum officials encouraged Litwak to continue and in 1939 opened an exhibition of thirty-six of his crayon drawings.² In addition to urban subjects, Litwak enjoyed depicting rural scenes, all of them from memory.

Notes:

1 For a comprehensive description of the background and construction of Rockefeller Center, and later alterations to it, see Carol Herselle Krinsky, Rockefeller Center (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978).

2 Various press clippings describing the artist and the exhibition are in the Israel Litwak scrapbook in the Art Reference Library of the Brooklyn Museum. The museum also owns examples of Litwak's work.


Rockefeller Center 1941 Israel C. Litwak (1867 -1952) Oil on canvas, 26 1/2 X 40 1/4 Inscribed and signed lower right: Rockefeller Center -Israel Litwak -1941 Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Leo Treem, 86.56
In this naive depiction of one of midtown Manhattan's celebrated landmarks and tourist attractions, the artist has reduced the archetypal skyscrapers, which in actuality overshadow the skating rink, to a minor role and has magnified the rink to appear as the scene's dominant pictorial element. This inversion emphasizes the intended purpose of Rockefeller Center's plan -to use an open area to entice people into its complex of large buildings and shops. Rockefeller Center was built during the Great Depression on a site bounded by 48th and 51st Streets and Fifth and Sixth Avenues, where, in 1802, New York's first botanical garden had been established by Dr. David Hosack. Hosack sold the fourteen-acre Elgin Garden to New York State in 1814, the same year the state granted the property to Columbia College in exchange for extensive acreage that Columbia held in New Hampshire.¹ When the Rockefeller Center outdoor skating rink opened to the public on Christmas Day, 1936, it earned the distinction of being the first artificial outdoor skating rink on Fifth Avenue. For three years thereafter, the freezing unit for generating ice was removed at the end of each season, making way for an outdoor cafe in warmer weather. In 1939 a permanent freezing unit was installed, buried within a terrazzo floor that also served as the cafe flooring, thereby ending the labor involved in converting the rink to a dining area. Anecdotal information suggests that the artist's roller-skating figures recall a brief period in the rink's history before its exclusive dedication to ice skating and its use as a summer restaurant. Israel Litwak, who arrived in New York City from Odessa, Russia, in 1903, worked as a cabinetmaker until his retirement in the late 1930s. To occupy himself in retirement, he taught himself to draw, and when he considered his work enough improved, he offered two works to the Brooklyn Museum. Museum officials encouraged Litwak to continue and in 1939 opened an exhibition of thirty-six of his crayon drawings.² In addition to urban subjects, Litwak enjoyed depicting rural scenes, all of them from memory. Notes: 1 For a comprehensive description of the background and construction of Rockefeller Center, and later alterations to it, see Carol Herselle Krinsky, Rockefeller Center (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978). 2 Various press clippings describing the artist and the exhibition are in the Israel Litwak scrapbook in the Art Reference Library of the Brooklyn Museum. The museum also owns examples of Litwak's work.