WHILE journeying to Randall’s Island via Mott Haven and Port Morris recently I was making my way east checking the ancient piano factories on Bruckner Boulevard. I wanted to see something else, though, because I was aware of a very interesting item at #156 Bruckner just as it turns northeast and meets East 133rd Street. This far east Bruckner sits in a industrial area with auto repair shops and warehouses, but this Best Western branch constructed in 2018, called City Line Hotel (though it’s nowhere near the NYC Line) is something special, with its multicolor exterior panels. Best Western is known to be somewhat playful in its esthetic…it ran the City View Hotel in Blissville, Queens for some time, and thankfully didn’t change a thing on the exterior from when it was a public school.
I call the hotel the Boogie Woogie Best Western, as it reminds me of the Piet Mondrian painting “Broadway Boogie Woogie” and its blue, red and yellow coloration. Dutch painter Mondrian (1872-1944) executed the work late in his career (it’s his last major painting), after moving to New York City in 1940. Mondrian began as an Impressionist and later, under the influence of Cubism and Surrealism, he painted exclusively colorful geometric shapes, embarking in this style around 1920.
Passionately devoted as he was to dancing and rhythm, Mondrian had always been attracted by the latest in ballroom music, advocating the tango and one- and two-steps over the waltz. In the late 1920s he named two paintings Fox Trot A and B after the popular American dance recently introduced into Europe. And boogie-woogie obviously had a profound impact on him. Nevertheless, the most important factor in the origin of this painting, and of the “mutation” in his art, must have been the experience of the daily rhythm of New York itself, the pulsating movement that animates Broadway, especially at night, and, in thorough keeping with the old principles of De Stijl, creates harmony out of the opposition of contraries. [PietMondrian.org]
The building stands out all the more in this industrial no man’s land, but community boards would likely have been reluctant to approve the design an a more populated or commercialized area. Today, weary travelers on the Bruckner or Deegan can rest in a hotel inspired by a modern master, though they probably don’t know it.
Check out the ForgottenBook (HarperCollins, 2006), as well as Forgotten Queens (Arcadia, 2013). I also have a chapter in the anthology “New York Calling: From Blackout to Bloomberg” (Reaktion, 2007). As always, “comment…as you see fit.” I earn a small payment when you click on any ad on the site.
10/26/26
3 comments
Kevin Walsh is the greatest person in the world
Agreed
The Partridge Family bus, reincarnated as a hotel!