ART OF THE JAVITS

LONG before the cluster of glass towers arose at Hudson Yards, Javits Center was the pioneer on the wild west side of Midtown Manhattan. It is not the biggest convention center in this country but it sure feels that way when you’re inside it. It’s more than a million square feet of exhibition space stretching between 34th and 40th streets, with the largest green roof in the city.

As visitors rush to see things like the international auto show, the boat show, and comic con, among other things, they may miss the monument to its namesake. That’s why there’s Forgotten-NY, for the overlooked details in otherwise highly visible places. William Crozier’s bronze likeness of Sen. Jacob K. Javits offers a seat to the public, next to a wall of names listing his family members and supporters. He was a liberal Republican in the example of Fiorello LaGuardia, serving as the state Attorney General, Congressman, and then Senator. His name also appears on a playground in Washington Heights and the federal office building at Foley Square.

There isn’t much to document inside the Javits Center that’s “forgotten” but on its western side there are two massive balconies with stairs to nowhere that jut out, seemingly like unfinished bridges across the West Side Highway. Some of the city’s most famous structures were never completed: the George Washington Bridge never received its stone cladding; Hearst Tower’s original design was unrealized; and the subway alphabet has many letters missing. Perhaps there were plans for a bridge here that was never finished.

Editor’s note: In the subways, I and O are out, as they resemble 1 and zero; no one will take the “pee train” or the “why train” seriously. T is supposed to be the southern extension of the Second Avenue Subway upon completion after NASA reaches Titan. At one time, the IBX was supposed to be the X train, when it was tabbed as a heavy rail subway.

Across West Side Highway is Pier 76, which has a history worthy of its own essay, so I’ll hold off on it. Under the concrete balcony is a huge painting completed in 2024, Sustainable Fashion Mural by Emily Ding. Its message speaks of environmental sustainability, which fits with its host building’s massive green roof. It was cosponsored by the nonprofit Street Art for Mankind and the UN Environment Programme, as one of four murals in this neighborhood on this theme.

Across 11th Avenue from Javits Center at W. 36th Street is another mural from this series, Sustainable Plastics by Super A, the pseudonym of Dutch artist Stefan Thelen. The nondescript building hosting this artwork is a ventilation shaft for the super deep 34th Street-Hudson Yards station on the 7 train. Kevin walked past this mural last year in his review of Tenth Avenue in Chelsea.

The back side of this building also has a glow-up, as my children would call it. Depicting a woman surrounded by butterflies, Breathe by Adry del Rocio, has the darkened sky referencing the 2023 Canadian wildfires that impacted the skyline of New York.

Around the corner from these murals, an overpass of W. 36th Street above the Amtrak Hudson Line has work from the summer of 2025, Cachitos con Amor (Fragments with Love) by Blanka Amezkua. This mural stretches across 300 feet, painted by workers from developer Tishman Speyer on their annual volunteer day, in partnership with the DOT and Hudson Yards Hell’s Kitchen Alliance. This work is inspired by the Mexican papel picado, designs on intricately cut paper.

Of interest to Kevin, and certainly Frank Jump is 547 W. 36th Street, a relic of Hell’s Kitchen before gentrification. The fading letters read “Storage Warehouse,” as it was under McNally Transfer Company back in the 1940s. The other old building here with metal bracing is a horse stable, where Central Park’s carriage horses spend their nights.

As mentioned, Javits Center is not the largest convention center in the country and in order for this city to remain competitive, in 2021 the center had a $1.5 billion expansion, adding 500,000 square feet of space,with its own one-acre rooftop farm. On the wall of the expansion wing, artist Carlos Alberto has his Climate Action Mural taking up 12,800 square feet of wall space. With all of this talk about sustainability, I came to Javits Center that day to see the New York International Auto Show, seemingly the opposite front in the ongoing “war on cars” as the city administration pushes on in expanding bike lanes and reducing the speed limit. Most of the visitors were families with children who rely on cars for their errands, certainly for day trips and vacations.

Initially, the glass here was black, compared to Darth Vader and a hazard for birds. In 2015, it received a brighter, safer glass facade, praised by the birding community. As Javits Center is operated by a state-sponsored agency, the state flag flies here, with state troopers parked outside. The orange-white-blue flag here is another example of state authority, representing the city of Albany. Its colors also appeared on the Dutch colonial flag, which also inspired the flags of NYC, the Bronx, Jersey City, and other locales within the former New Netherlands.

Exhibits come and go, and murals fade with time. Then one can look at Javits Center as a work of art in itself, cubes of glass and frames of intricate beams holding thousands of panes in place.

Sergey Kadinsky is the author of Hidden Waters of New York City: A History and Guide to 101 Forgotten Lakes, Ponds, Creeks, and Streams in the Five Boroughs (2016, Countryman Press), adjunct history professor at Touro University and the webmaster of Hidden Waters Blog. 

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4/18/26