The Slip

The New York City Street That Changed American Art Forever

By: Prudence Peiffer

Narrated by: Melissa Redmond

Longlisted for the National Book Award · A New York Times Notable Book of the Year · Winner of the New York City Book Award · Shortlisted for the Apollo Book of the Year Award · Shortlisted for the Plutarch Award for Best Biography · Finalist for the Gotham Book Prize · Finalist for the Pattis Family Foundation Creative Arts Book Award at Interlochen

The never-before-told story of an obscure little street at the lower tip of Manhattan and the remarkable artists who got their start there.

For just over a decade, from 1956 to 1967, a collection of dilapidated former sail-making warehouses clustered at the lower tip of Manhattan became the quiet epicenter of the art world. Coenties Slip, a dead-end street near the water, was home to a circle of wildly talented and varied artists that included Robert Indiana, Ellsworth Kelly, Agnes Martin, James Rosenquist, Delphine Seyrig, Lenore Tawney, and Jack Youngerman. As friends and inspirations to one another, they created a unique community for unbridled creative expression and experimentation, and the works they made at the Slip would go on to change the course of American art.

Now, for the first time, Prudence Peiffer pays homage to these artists and the unsung impact their work had on the direction of late twentieth-century art and film. This remarkable biography, as transformative as the artists it illuminates, questions the very concept of a “group” or “movement,” as it spotlights the Slip’s eclectic mix of gender and sexual orientation, abstraction and Pop, experimental film, painting, and sculpture, assemblage and textile works. Brought together not by the tenets of composition or technique, nor by philosophy or politics, the artists cultivated a scene at the Slip defined by a singular spirit of community and place. They drew lasting inspiration from one another, but perhaps even more from where they called home, and the need to preserve the solitude its geography fostered. Despite Coenties Slip’s obscurity, the entire history of Manhattan was inscribed into its cobblestones—one of the first streets and central markets of the new colony, built by enslaved people, with revolutionary meetings at the tavern just down Pearl Street; named by Herman Melville in Moby Dick and site of the boom and bust of the city’s maritime industry; and, in the artists’s own time, a development battleground for Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses. The Slip’s history is entwined with that of the artists and their art—eclectic and varied work that was made from the wreckage of the city’s many former lives.

An ambitious and singular account of a time, a place, and a group of extraordinary people, The Slip investigates the importance of community, and makes an argument for how we are shaped by it, and how it in turns shapes our work.

©2023 Prudence Peiffer (P)2023 HarperCollins Publishers

Exactly what I’d hoped it would be.

While not an oral history, this book has all the elements of my favorite oral histories like “Please kill me” and “Edie.” I finished feeling like I knew the artists and The Slip.

I very much appreciate the last chapter. It was exciting to see that the author was taking away the same impressions I had about the relevance today of a place like Coenties Slip during the mid 20th century.

makes the most appreciation for the art of the art

I like the knowing the inner circle of life in THE SLIP and a greater appreciation for each artist

A look inside

Of the minds and work ethics of artists in the 60’s and 70’s. A love note to NYC’s secrets no longer seen in our modern cityscape! Loved it!

Brilliantly detailed history of American artists in a very specific time in NY.

Prudence Peiffer has masterfully weaved together the biographies of artists living at the Slip and their significant individual contributions, they each made to the American Art in the mid twentieth century.

Sounds like it’s read by AI

The premise, that Coenties Slip itself influenced the work of post-war, post-Ab Ex artists, makes a case for linking artists’ output by place rather than by style or movement.

However, the vocal performance sometimes reminded me of a GPS or Interactive Voice Response prompt (Press 2 to hear more about Ellsworth Kelly!) and the butchered French made me want to set fire to my earbuds.

If you can get past the uncanny valley aspects, give it a try.

This was a very good follow up to ninth Street women

They general information was very interesting. The presentation had her pronunciation, both in English, and in peoples names and foreign language usages in English.
A bit rote vs storytelling

Recommended reading for artists and anyone interested in the history of the 1950’s - 60’s in NY.

Well written, informative and really gives you a sense of how New York and the Slip influenced these legendary artists.

The narrator mis-pronounces everones name

I was so upset to hear the constant mis-pronounciations of artists name is this book that i couldnt finish it.