Site Lines - by Jill Gill (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Jill Gill's spirited watercolors and accompanying perceptive captions document New York City as it has changed over more than half a century. Covers Midtown Manhattan (with its southern, eastern, and western sections), the Upper West Side, and the Upper East Side"--

Book Synopsis

Born and bred New Yorker Jill Gill is equal parts artist and author, commentator and collector, a true inamorata of the ever-changing city. Since the mid-1950s, she has captured the buildings and streetscapes of the city (especially those about to be lost to urban renewal) in a series of more than 100 watercolor and ink paintings. The New York she portrays is one of classic movies, vintage postcards, and hand-painted wall advertisements.

The scenes in Site Lines: Lost New York, 1954-2022 extend from Midtown South, home of the artist from the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s, to the Upper East Side, where she and her family lived in a historic Rhinelander townhouse. Along the way she passes through Midtown, including storied Fifth Avenue and the Theater District, and the Upper West Side.

Her work includes buildings both important and unimportant that would otherwise have been lost to memory: the glorious Helen Hayes Theater, the Art Deco Horn & Hardart Automat on 57th Street, and blocks upon blocks of ordinary yet distinctive retail and commercial structures. In addition, Gill includes buildings that have themselves been quietly observing the changing city, often changing along with it: St. Bart's, the Villard Houses, and MoMA before it "ate" 53rd Street. Each scene is accompanied by text that blends in-depth research with first-hand observation.

Review Quotes

"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." --Business Insider


"Do not be misled by the jaunty, playful quality of Jill Gill's watercolors. They are fun to look at, but they tell the profound story of a city evolving, not always for the better. Jill Gill has recorded New York with love and insight, and her book is at once an elegy, a personal tale, and an exquisite historical document." --Paul Goldberger

"Jill Gill is the rare painter who can write and the more rare writer who can paint, and she does both with charm and grace, and with an eye for details unseen by mere mortals. Her Lost New York series makes the city found again." --John Tauranac