THEN AND NOW: Illustrations of New York dating back to the 1950s show just how much the city has changed
Talia Lakritz
- Jill Gill, an artist and lifelong New Yorker, painted NYC streetscapes beginning in the 1950s.
- Decades later, her grandson visited the same locations she painted to capture how they've changed.
As a lifelong New Yorker, artist Jill Gill, 91, has watched the city's famous streets transform before her eyes.
Over the years, iconic theaters and landmarks have been demolished, and rows of brownstones have been cleared to make way for towering skyscrapers.
So she began to paint.
Gill's award-winning book, "Site Lines: Lost New York, 1954-2022," features the watercolor streetscape paintings she created to preserve nearly 70 years' worth of New York City's history.
"Every building and school I went to before the age of 13 has since been torn down," Gill told Business Insider. "That's what gave me the feeling that I wanted to save whatever I could save. What actually interests me the most, rather than famous buildings that find their way into these paintings, are uncelebrated, unlandmarked, unremarkable buildings that otherwise would've been lost to history."
Gill sketched her streetscapes in pencil first, then loosely outlined the shapes with watercolor paints. Ink lines followed in a spontaneous process that she likens to scat singing.
"I can't tell you how I do them. It just happens," she said. "It's amazing to me."
Gill's 16-year-old grandson, Declan, recently visited 10 of the same locations she painted decades ago to document how they've fared in the ever-changing city. Viewed together, the images present a fascinating portrait of streets that are never stagnant.
Jill Gill is an artist, author, and lifelong New Yorker whose watercolor paintings span 70 years of the city's history and streetscapes.
Her grandson, Declan, visited 10 of the locations from paintings in her book, "Site Lines: Lost New York, 1954–2022," to capture how much they've changed.
Gill painted Zabar's, an Upper West Side grocery store known for its bagels, smoked fish, and baked goods, in 1979.
As Declan's recent photo shows, Zabar's remains in the same location today, and has expanded into the neighboring storefronts.
In 1969, the corner of 55th Street and Madison Avenue featured a haberdashery, a stationery store, and a needlepoint shop.
Now, the block has been overtaken by 550 Madison Avenue, a 37-story office building made of pink granite.
Tenement buildings and local businesses spanned Third Avenue between 53rd and 54th Streets in 1981.
The elliptical Lipstick Building, constructed in 1984, replaced them.
The Helen Hayes Theatre on 46th Street once featured a bright, colorful facade decorated with terra cotta tile.
The theater was demolished in the 1980s during the construction of the Marriott Marquis Hotel in Times Square, though it eventually found a new home in a theater on 44th Street.
In 1968, Gill painted the east side of Third Avenue between 55th and 56th, including the original P.J. Clarke's bar and restaurant dating back to 1884.
P.J. Clarke's is still around today. The owners refused to sell the building to the developer who built the neighboring 919 Third Avenue office tower. "It fascinates me," Gill told BI.
The corner of Park Avenue and 56th Street used to house the Drake Hotel, a four-story townhouse, and the American Bible Society.
At 96 stories tall, 432 Park Avenue has dominated the block since its completion in 2015.
Gill painted the Museum of Modern Art as it looked in 1979 on what she called a "charming block" featuring brownstones and mansions.
The smaller buildings "got eaten up as the MoMA grew hungrier," Gill said. Its real-estate footprint gobbled up most of 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenue.
Gill's 1979 painting of Fifth Avenue depicts the Sherry-Netherland Hotel, the General Motors Building, and Tiffany & Co.
Many of the buildings remain in place today, aside from the luxury department store Bonwit Teller.
Bonwit Teller was a famous Fifth Avenue landmark when Gill painted its storefront in 1979.
Donald Trump bought the building for $15 million in 1979 and razed it in order to build Trump Tower.
Lascoff's, New York City's first licensed pharmacy, once occupied a four-story brownstone row house on 82nd Street and Lexington Avenue.
Warby Parker took over the building, painting it charcoal grey but keeping the original sign advertising prescriptions.
Gill says "Site Lines" is her gift to New York, telling BI, "New York is the city of my birth and of my life, and it will go on long after I am no longer here."
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