Weekend, December 29, 2023 – January 2, 2024 – SO MANY THINGS ARE NOW GONE, INCLUDING HISTORIC BUILDING

By admin

FROM THE ARCHIVES

WEEKEND, DEC. 29- JAN. 2, 2024

ARTIST DRAWS


THE ICONIC LOST


BUILDINGS OF NYC

Raymond Biesinger

UNTAPPED NEW YORK

ISSUE#  1154

One artist has taken on the challenge of recreating near 700 bulldozed, demolished, burned down, and otherwise “lost” buildings of the 19th and 20th-centuries. Montreal based illustrator Raymond Biesinger has tasked himself with researching and drawing the disappeared buildings of Canada and the USA’s 50 largest cities and boroughs before 2022. His simple yet detailed and precise drawings bring back to life buildings that were lost to time, and he’s already covered most of New York City.

So far, Bieseinger is 92 weeks, 356 drawings, and 22 prints in to the challenge. Biesinger tells Untapped New York, “My style of illustration has always been very rectangular and geometric, and over the years architectural projects have just ‘found me.’” While working on a series of Canadian historic and architectural prints from 2012-2015, which included dozens of buildings, he found himself most drawn to the ones that no longer existed. “It seemed like a good idea to explore those ‘lost’ buildings, and after drawing my way through Canada’s, it seemed like a good idea to explore the United States,” he says.

Image Courtesy of Raymond Biesinger

Biesinger has already drawn his way through most of New York City’s long gone structures. He compiles his geometric drawings into eye-catching posters with a collage of the lost buildings from a particular city or borough in the US or Canada. Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens are all available. As for Staten Island, Biesinger says it’s more difficult to conduct the research for buildings in a smaller borough from abroad, but, “Maybe there’s a Staten Island historian-illustrator duo who would be up for the challenge!”

Image Courtesy of Raymond Biesinger

In Biesinger’s posters of New York City’s lost buildings, you will find a wide variety of structures from train stations and factories to theaters and hotels, even fast food restaurants. In Manhattan, buildings featured include the famous original Penn Station which was demolished in 1963, the Singer Building which held the title of tallest building in the world in 1908, the Twin Towers, and a previous iteration of Madison Square Garden. In Queens, New Yorkers will remember the original Shea Stadium, the demolished PanAm Worldport and a Wendy’s that served as a film location for the Eddie Murphy film Coming to America in the 1980s. The illustrated lost buildings of Brooklyn include the former home of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Ebbet’s Field and Luna Park at Coney Island. In the Bronx, Biesinger’s poster brings back to life the Loew’s National Theater, the Whitlock Mansion, and original Yankee Stadium.

Image Courtesy of Raymond Biesinger

raymond@fifteen.ca
tel. 1-514-264-2382
2679 rue Wellington, Montreal
QC, Canada, H3K 1X8

About
I’m a Montréal-based illustrator, artist, and best-selling author very into editorial and commercial work, and while the portfolio part of this website may include only a trim two dozen projects, I’ve been part of more than 1000 assignments on five continents since 2002. That might sound impressive (and make commissioning me to make new work sound expensive), but I work on a sliding scale and respond to every inquiry. Other interests: minimalism, maximalism, world and local history, equality, diversity, economics, music, science fiction, historic buildings, pictorial maps, Canadiana, wall art, preserving a 145-year-old home, etc. I’m also a proud member of Illustration Québec, which is a non-profit organization whose mission is to bring together and support illustrators.

You can think of much of my work as a collage that doesn’t look like a collage—pieces made from real-world lines, shapes, and textures scanned into a computer that’s used as an infinitely-forgiving Xerox machine, glue, and scissors. These “collaged” components lose their recognizability in the process, but through repetitive use bring flaws, eccentricities, and geometries that form a unique visual vocabulary.

AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE

BROCADE PANELS NOW ON DISPLAY
IN RIVERCROSS DISPLAY WINDOW.

SEND YOUR INQUIRY TO:
ROOSEVELTISLANDHISTORY@GMAIL.COM

THURSDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

ORIGINAL 1950’S CONTROL PANEL THAT WAS REMOVED 
FROM WELFARE ISLAND BRIDGE  10 YEARS AGO.

CREDITS

UNTAPPED NEW YORK
RAYMOND  BIESINGER

MAYA LEVANON-PHOTOS TIK TOK & INSTAGRAM

All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated

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THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.

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