One of my favorite ways to experience New York is by running along the Hudson River. The route offers a reminder that some of the city’s best art exists well beyond museum walls.
Start at Pier 52, just south of the Whitney Museum, where David Hammons’s Day’s End quietly occupies the river itself. The monumental skeletal structure traces the footprint of Gordon Matta-Clark’s legendary 1975 intervention while remaining almost immaterial—appearing and disappearing with the changing light, weather, and tide.
From there, head downtown toward 56 Leonard Street to visit Anish Kapoor’s Untitled—better known by New Yorkers as the “Mini Bean.” Tucked beneath the Herzog & de Meuron tower, the mirrored sculpture transforms the surrounding city into a constantly shifting reflection.
Finish in Battery Park with Tom Sachs’s Miffy Fountain. Inspired by the beloved Dutch storybook character, the sculpture combines Sachs’s handmade aesthetic with humor, craftsmanship, and public accessibility. It is playful, unexpected, and a reminder that joy has an important place in public art.
Together these three works offer a remarkable cross-section of contemporary sculpture in New York. Monumentality and intimacy, reflection and imagination, permanence and change—all experienced on foot, outdoors, and in conversation with the city itself.
.JPG)
