Feeling Groovy - Sketching for Saturday, May 31, 2014

Sketch Event Designed and Hosted 
by Joy Hecht


This Saturday's sketching will be - in case you haven't figured it out yet! - on and around the pedestrian walkway on the 59th Street Bridge.

For the soundtrack of the 1966 Classic: The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy) click here:

We'll meet on the walkway itself at 10:00 am. The closest subway station is 59th Street and Lexington – an express stop on the 4, 5, or 6 lines (otherwise known as the Lexington Avenue IRT, for those who remember the soundtrack) and the first/last stop in Manhattan on the N, Q, and R lines (aka the BMT, for us oldies).

To get onto the walkway, walk to 60th and 1st, just on the uptown side of the bridge. The walkway is accessed from there, but doubles back towards 2nd Avenue for half a block before doing another switchback and heading up the bridge. Be careful of bicycles!

The image to the left gives you an idea of what it looks like as you head up the walkway. The satellite image below, from Google maps, shows the route to walk. According to Google, it’s 0.8 miles from 59th and Lexington Avenue to the spot on the walkway where you’re just over the river’s edge.

We start sketching on the walkway, about where the bridge is over the shoreline. You can see views like these:

At 11:15 we’ll head towards Manhattan, and settle in for a second sketching session over the land. You could sketch scenes like these:

At 12:30 we will break for lunch. So the plan is to head over to the Food Emporium that is nestled under the bridge, from 59th to 60th Streets on the east side of 1st Avenue. Emporium sells a wide range of prepared food, so we should all be able to find something we’d like to have for lunch. The store has seating upstairs with interesting views of the incredible space under the bridge. So if you want to sketch over lunch, this is what you’ll see:

After lunch our third sketching spot  is a kind of a landing along the East River just north of the bridge, marked with a “B” in the image below:

We'll be treated to views from the landing that look like these:

Of course the weather is going to be every bit as perfect as it was the day I took these photos!

If you need help finding us call Joy at, 1-202-494-1162. 

(Yes that's a Washington DC cellphone)