About
New York City owes much to the elevator, the engineering advancement that made quick travel beyond a few stories feasible, and directly contributed to the race to build ever-taller buildings that reached a fever-pitch by the early 20th century and has continued unabated ever since, giving the city some of its most iconic landmarks and stunning views.
I started Elevator View in January 2011, not long after I began working on the 22nd floor of an office building in Midtown Manhattan. The views from this vantage point include Rockefeller Center, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the Burberry Building, Palace Hotel, St. Bartholomew’s Church, Park Avenue, and Madison Avenue (with glimpses of the rising 4 World Trade Center). After photographing these views, I started bringing my camera along anytime I knew I would be in a building with elevated views of the city – to business meetings and social events – and at the invitation of people who learn about the project and offer me the opportunity to photograph their vantage points.
I designed the Elevator View logo to visually convey the idea of photographing an urban environment from high up in the buildings that form the city’s architectural fabric. It features the silhouette of a camera near the top of a building meant to evoke iconic skyscrapers like the Empire State Building, Chrysler Building, American International Building, and 1 Bryant Park. This helps make Elevator View easily identifiable and memorable.
You can follow @elevatorview on Twitter for my latest photos. I also curate and retweet the best elevated photography of New York from other urban photographers. Blending my own work with those of others gives me a window into how they perceive the city, and a rich source of ideas for new vantage points. But more importantly, it makes this whole project about much more than just my own work. In a recent interview with Scientific American, painter Michele Banks explained the role Twitter can play in how artists interact with the public:
“I think some artists don’t get the best out of Twitter or other social media because they mostly write about their own work. I talk about everything – art and science, sure, but also football, music, politics, kids, cats, whatever. If you think of it as a great free-flowing conversation that you can jump into any time, and you both listen and respond, then it’s amazing. If you just talk about yourself, then you’re that guy at the party that just talks about himself, and you’re not going to be very popular.”
Elevator View for me is as much about discovering and responding to the architecture and built environment of New York City as it is about listening to and connecting with others who share my interest in this unique perspective on the city.
Influences
Berenice Abbott, Iwan Baan, John Bartelstone, Andreas Feininger, Norman McGrath, Sherill Schell, Irving Underhill, Camilo José Vergara
Press
- An Elevated View of the City The Atlantic Cities
- Elevator View: A Photo Essay Untapped Cities
- Elevator View photographer Stewart Mader is a member of the Gawker Artists collective
- “A website celebrating urbanity and its elevated perches.” -Kirstin Butler
- “@slmader’s photo log of views from skyscrapers. Reminder of solitude + enormity that is NYC.” -Erin Pettigrew
- “These photographs are beautiful. Mr. Mader is an original, just the way New York City is an original.” -Peachlet_51
