Josef & Anni Albers Foundation

Narratives

Manhattan

Josef was proud of a small book that was a walking tour of his various New York murals—the Corning Glass one as well as large Homages in the elevator lobby at the Time Life Building and Manhattan in what was originally the Pan Am building. Manhattan was eventually destroyed when the building changed ownership, but then, in 2019 its reconstruction, in its original location over the staircase into Grand Central Station, was achieved with a triumphant response in the press; today thousands of people pass underneath it every day.

The original Manhattan mural, Pan Am Building, New York City, ca. 1963