Gantry Plaza State Park

Today the NYC Urban Sketchers met at Gantry Plaza State Park in Long Island City. The park houses these structures called gantries. They were built in 1925 and are actually huge cranes that picked up boxcars from barges on the East River. Then they were transferred onto train tracks that once ran up to the edge of the water. From there the boxcars could go on to further points on Long Island, or upstate and on to New England. They could transfer 100 ton cars and were very quick and efficient. The train tracks are gone but it is nice to see that the gantries themselves were restored and kept to mark this time in NY history. 

#momentsketchers

The weather forecast was for scattered thunderstorms but we decided to take a chance and go anyway. It was hot and humid and rather uncomfortable unless you were sitting in the shade. I wanted to capture the Long Island logo on this gantry which meant sitting out on the walkway in the sun.

I moved over to the shade  to finish the sketch above and then do the sketch below. I used the Elegant Writer pen for parts of this and I think its bleeding effect worked well with the added watercolors.

We took a break for lunch in the shade and then one of my friends and I headed to a market to get something cold to drink and cool off in the air conditioning. As we were walking down to the water again to sketch the Pepsi sign we felt a few drops. There really wasn't any place to sit and sketch this view that was protected. We lucked out and the rain held off.

We did gather at the end of the day for our "show and tell." We got about 2/3 of the way through showing our work when the raindrops started to fall. We finished up quickly and all headed home. Luckily my friend's husband had driven us there and was waiting up on the main street for us with the car.