I’ve been dubbed “New York–centric,” as if it were a bad thing. My love for the city goes back to my birth. I’ve always thought of Manhattan as the center of the world. Now, Poster House in Manhattan is celebrating my NYCentricity with an exhibition curated by Nicholas D. Lowry and designed by Ola Baldych, Wonder City of the World: New York City Travel Posters (on view through Sept. 8).
“The phrase ‘Wonder City’ in regards to New York was the brainchild of marketers,” states the exhibition website. “It had appeared in newspaper and magazine advertisements and articles sporadically through the final decades of the 19th century. And although it didn’t specifically originate in New York City—a number of cities around the country and in Europe also used it in their promotions at that time—by 1914 the phrase appeared on a New York Souvenir booklet.”
At the end of the 19th century, New York became a tourist destination that demanded the printing of many alluring travel posters, more than were designed for any other world city. “A host of images as varied as her ever-shifting identity, seen from the water, from the ground and, eventually, from the air,” states the website. This special exhibit shows how the city was marketed to the slew of newcomers, from tourists to immigrants.
Various poster artists were able to capture the magnitude and power of the world’s greatest metropolis, magnifying the bright lights and the imposing structures, “as well as managing to capture some moments of intimacy and slice-of-life imagery within the canyons and among the ziggurats.”
For the New York maven this is a finely curated treasure trove of bills definitely designed to be proudly posted.
