Entrance on the south side of 150 Franklin Street, Greenpoint, Brooklyn

November 2000

I did this painting here because my friend Becky Smith had opened her gallery, Bellwether, next door, and I wanted to surprise her. It was a lonely place to paint, which made me think that it might be a difficult place to have a gallery. No one came by for the two days that I spent painting. The gallery moved to another place in Williamsburg after that, and now it’s in Chelsea with all the other galleries.

Later, I stopped by and noticed that someone had drawn a little whale in the lake in the painting. I stole the lake from a painting of Snowdon by Richard Wilson. It was still there the last time I walked by.