Customer Reviews

The City Out My Window: 63 Views on New York

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Matteo Pericoli has created a lovely series of drawings showing what New Yorkers see outside their windows. The covers are hard cardboard, giving the feeling of an apartment window casing. The drawings are well done and often quite surprising. I particularly liked the comments that Pericoli gathered from the residents of the apartments about their personal views of the city.

On every left page is text, written by the window's owner and on every right page is a sketch drawn by Pericoli. Caroline Baron writes that her window "provides a structure through which we can dream (and prepare for weather!)". Mikhail Baryshnikov writes the view is better at night, "like a woman". Mario Batali is almost about the ghost of Washington Square (and brings to mind his wonderful Babbo Restaurant just below his apartment.

David Byrne is philosophical: "I think of my view as pretty typical for a New Yorker. We look out our windows at other windows. That, in a way, mirrors our lives here -- we are constantly looking at each other, millions of us, on the streets and elsewhere."

Paul Goldberger writes in his introduction, "[Pericoli] reveals...the personal connection each of us has to the cityscape, and the way in which things that are simply there, things that we did not create but that we look at all the time, can have a profound effect on our being. ... [Y]our window is the frame through which you see your own picture of the world, a picture that is yours and no one else's." The residents's comments reflect those observations.

Pericoli has put together a lovely collection of his drawings on his website so you can see the high quality of his work. Manhattan Unfurled is a wonderful example of what his imagination can conceive. He created two large pen and ink drawings of fifteen hundred buildings, and nineteen bridges in two 37 foot long scrolls of the East and West Sides of the Manhattan skyline. In the book version, there is a 24-panel, 22-foot-long accordion fold-out, with the entire East and West Side drawings, one on each side.

World Unfurled is a similar work based on "Skyline of the World", the 397-foot long mural installed in 2007 at the new American Airlines Terminal at John F. Kennedy Airport. The book features an accordion-style fold-out of the entire drawing and a 70-city journey throughout the world.

The precision of Pericoli's drawings bring the city to life in an extraordinary way. If you love New York City, or exquisite pen and ink drawings of buildings, any one of these three works will inspire and delight you.

Robert C. Ross 2009

I love this book. As a small town gal who looks out my window to see grass, trees and gardens that are just a step out my door; I have often wondered what a city dweller must see and if they longed for other (greener) views. But, as humans, where we are, what we know, and what we have grown accustomed to, is what we tend to love. This glimpse into a world so different from mine is wonderful. It left me wanting more.
Thank you for opening your homes and sharing your views with Matteo and those of us who purchase this book.

63 views on New York does not lie. If you want a nicely-put-together, accurately-titled art book, then by all means, proceed without fear.

You would be hard-pressed to fault Matteo Pericoli's drawings: they have all the poetic delicacy of a Japanese estampe and the lightly etched precision of the great French comic book artist Moebius, which is what attracted me to this book in the first place. Nor can you quibble the concept modeled after such brilliant illustrated landscapes as Hiroshige's One Hundred Famous Views of Edo or Hokusai Thirty Six Views of Mount Fuji. Here it is applied to New York, specifically to the views it offers out of its many windows. It will appeal as much to those fresh to the Big Apple as to those who have lived there or are curious of doing so. The book is also well packaged, its cream colored pages sandwiched between thick slabs of grey board pierced at the front by a mock window pane.
You can however regret, specially if you regard the cult of celebrity as essentially baleful, that Mr. Pericoli chose to have his "subjects" be "famous" for some thing or other. Baryshnikov, Batali, Doctorow, Glass, Koch, Leibovitz, etc, etc, etc: the list reads like an orgy of name dropping. Of course, a few of the participants have interesting, even illuminating comments; I was touched by Ethan Herschenfeld's wistfulness for instance, and loved, as I always do, David Byrne's pungent irony. But so many others are perfunctory, not to say cringe worthy, like Baryshnikov's comment that the undeniably remarkable building he gazes on looks "better at night... like a woman". Er, sure, Mikhail, much like the wine I tasted yesterday evening in fact... just like a woman. Those who like to indulge in copious schadenfreude may also take pleasure in the realization that, at least in New York, some of the rich and famous share vistas as boring as those the average city dweller often wakes up to. Ultimately, this is a lovely book to give as a gift: I'll pass it to my younger brother in whose eyes the lights of the city still sparkle. Of course, he never lived here and only came to visit.

Gave this as a gift to my 9 year old grandson who draws intricate ink compositions. He loved this book and his mother says it is just terrific.

The City Out My Window: 63 Views on New York

A lovely book about NYC in eyes and words of many known VIPs.
The last years I've been in New York I made the same things:
photographs out of my hotelroom windows and at home I made the drawings.
So I remember every time om my stays in New York.
Wilfried Russ / Bremen - Germany

I gave this as a gift to very good friends who reside in the heart of Manhattan. They tell me they loved it and found the photos very interesting and enjoyable.

An intimate picture out the window of where many famous people live in New York City. The line drawings are Matteo Pericoli and the descriptions are written by those who live looking out the windows. A really charming book.

This is a beautiful and fascinating book. It is a window into the lives of the owners and their views on their view. This is a real treat and a great little coffee table book. The sketches are superb.

Saw this book on CBS Sunday Morning and received it two days later. Great book, highly recommend. Thank you. AAA+