Day's End by Gordon Matta-Clark

Where the Department of Sanitation now parks its trucks, Pier 52 once jutted into the Hudson River — one of many abandoned industrial relics along the Manhattan waterfront, long past their working lives.

In 1975, Gordon Matta-Clark turned Pier 52 into a monument to Chelsea’s vanishing Industrial Age. Slicing channels into the pier’s floors and ceiling, and carving cat-eye shapes into the tin walls facing New Jersey, Matta-Clark transformed the decrepit warehouse into something cathedral-like. He called it “Day’s End.” The new openings acted as stained glass windows, channeling the high noon sun down into the dark water below and scattering the setting sun in shapes throughout the interior.

1975 COLOR PHOTOGRAPH 16 X 20”)

Matta-Clark wanted the piece open to visitors twice a week, but the police had other ideas — he was arrested for trespassing and defacing property. It wasn’t his first intervention on the Hudson piers: Untitled Performance came in 1971 and Pier In/Out in 1973. The charges were eventually dropped.

Pier 52 carried its own mythology before Matta-Clark arrived. By 1975, it was a well-known gathering spot for gay men — so well-known that in 1979 a film called “Pier Groups” was shot there.

Location: Former Pier 52, West Street and Gansevoort Street, Manhattan, NY 10014