DAVID DIAZ

I had the pleasure of living in a historic pre-war building with a large wrap-around terrace and breath-taking city views for fifteen years on Manhattan’s West Side, which is now being developed to become the Hudson Yards.  Built in 1922 as a hotel and originally named Haddon Hall by the same builders of the New Yorker Hotel, which you can see prominently from the terrace and in the foreground of the Empire State Building, it was converted to residential during the depression.  I loved the idea of living in a hotel suite, so I opted to use the apartment/room #17F as my logo on cocktail napkins and towels for the terrace instead of any monogram.

 

I was featured in a RG Brazil Magazine spread.  The space with a garden in the sky was ideal for entertaining, which I did regularly.  In the article I talk about the relevance of the polar bear in some of my art which in addition to having become the symbol for environmental awareness also conjured fond memories of my first visit to New York as a child and the indelible impression of seeing a majestic Polar Bear in the Central Park Zoo in the middle of New York City - I was hooked!