
The Slip
The New York City Street That Changed American Art Forever
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Narrated by:
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Melissa Redmond
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By:
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Prudence Peiffer
Longlisted for the National Book Award · A New York Times Notable Book of the Year · Winner of the New York City Book Award · Shortlisted for the Apollo Book of the Year Award · Shortlisted for the Plutarch Award for Best Biography · Finalist for the Gotham Book Prize · Finalist for the Pattis Family Foundation Creative Arts Book Award at Interlochen
The never-before-told story of an obscure little street at the lower tip of Manhattan and the remarkable artists who got their start there.
For just over a decade, from 1956 to 1967, a collection of dilapidated former sail-making warehouses clustered at the lower tip of Manhattan became the quiet epicenter of the art world. Coenties Slip, a dead-end street near the water, was home to a circle of wildly talented and varied artists that included Robert Indiana, Ellsworth Kelly, Agnes Martin, James Rosenquist, Delphine Seyrig, Lenore Tawney, and Jack Youngerman. As friends and inspirations to one another, they created a unique community for unbridled creative expression and experimentation, and the works they made at the Slip would go on to change the course of American art.
Now, for the first time, Prudence Peiffer pays homage to these artists and the unsung impact their work had on the direction of late twentieth-century art and film. This remarkable biography, as transformative as the artists it illuminates, questions the very concept of a “group” or “movement,” as it spotlights the Slip’s eclectic mix of gender and sexual orientation, abstraction and Pop, experimental film, painting, and sculpture, assemblage and textile works. Brought together not by the tenets of composition or technique, nor by philosophy or politics, the artists cultivated a scene at the Slip defined by a singular spirit of community and place. They drew lasting inspiration from one another, but perhaps even more from where they called home, and the need to preserve the solitude its geography fostered. Despite Coenties Slip’s obscurity, the entire history of Manhattan was inscribed into its cobblestones—one of the first streets and central markets of the new colony, built by enslaved people, with revolutionary meetings at the tavern just down Pearl Street; named by Herman Melville in Moby Dick and site of the boom and bust of the city’s maritime industry; and, in the artists’s own time, a development battleground for Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses. The Slip’s history is entwined with that of the artists and their art—eclectic and varied work that was made from the wreckage of the city’s many former lives.
An ambitious and singular account of a time, a place, and a group of extraordinary people, The Slip investigates the importance of community, and makes an argument for how we are shaped by it, and how it in turns shapes our work.
©2023 Prudence Peiffer (P)2023 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...




















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makes the most appreciation for the art of the art
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Great slice of New York City- a moment in the city, of art and artists
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I very much appreciate the last chapter. It was exciting to see that the author was taking away the same impressions I had about the relevance today of a place like Coenties Slip during the mid 20th century.
Exactly what I’d hoped it would be.
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Sense of place….
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A bit rote vs storytelling
This was a very good follow up to ninth Street women
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Recommended reading for artists and anyone interested in the history of the 1950’s - 60’s in NY.
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A look inside
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Brilliantly detailed history of American artists in a very specific time in NY.
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However, the vocal performance sometimes reminded me of a GPS or Interactive Voice Response prompt (Press 2 to hear more about Ellsworth Kelly!) and the butchered French made me want to set fire to my earbuds.
If you can get past the uncanny valley aspects, give it a try.
Sounds like it’s read by AI
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The narrator mis-pronounces everones name
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