50 West 86th Street
Some of you may remember a blog I wrote several years ago The Good Luck Mansion about my first Manhattan apartment, a studio with a sleeping loft complete with brick wall and huge windows on the parlor floor of a limestone mansion on the Upper West Side built in the early 1900's for the Gimbel family from the famed Gimbel's department store. I lived there from 1981-1989.
You may recall my upstairs neighbor was an unknown actor named Tom Cruise and a few years later Robert Downey Jr and his girlfriend Sarah Jessica Parker moved in to the penthouse apartment.
I also wrote about the apartment below mine that had a swimming pool. It was also once the home of the ledgendary Jazz great King Curtis. He bought the building in 1971 just after he got off a tour with Aretha Franklin. The gallery space today is where the pool and his sound stage was. It's where he collaborated with John Lennon on the Imagine album July 1971.
Unfortunately in August 1971 King Curtis was stabbed to death by a couple of junkies hanging out on his front steps. His last session was for John Lennon's Imagine album. In a strange twist of fate 9 years later John Lennon was also murdered in front of his home at The Dakota also on the Upper West Side.
Gallery 52 NYC | 52 West 86th Street
The bulding's current owner Therese Flaherty beautifully renovated the garden floor pool apartment and converted it into a stunning art gallery. The gallery space was also once the location of Plato's retreat.
The space is full of art, history and creativitty and the main reason it was turned into an ART gallery.
"The legacy and the history of the artist who have lived and created here was the muse of the gallery" says Ms. Flaherty.
Gallery 52 NYC welcomed the art world last night to the Upper West Side of Manhattan with an exhibit Five Woman Artists.
Therese Flaherty and guest
The five woman artists featured art by Tina Louise, Angie Sinclair, Susan Woldman, Christy Powers and Virginia Knapp.
Cooling Off by Artist Angie Sinclair
Look for more full circle moments at Gallery 52 NYC. Yoko Ono's been pitched and hopefully we will get to see John's art there and maybe even Sarah Jessica's shoes.
The exhibit runs through May 8th from 11:00 AM - 7:00 PM at Gallery 52 NYC located at 52 West 86th Street (between Columbus Avenue & Central Park West. For appointment please call 702-241-1015
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