Shout out to this lady (overlooking 10th Avenue from 30th Street).

She’s called “Brick House,” and she’s looking over the eastern side of this block association from a high perch on 30th Street.

The artist is Simone Leigh, who lives in Brooklyn. The sculpture was first unveiled on the High Line in June 2019, and interestingly, she has a sister—a copy was installed at the main entrance of the University of Pennsylvania in November 2020.

I remember looking up at this for the first time and thinking that it made for a striking contrast against the skyscrapers behind it. That in fact was the artist’s point: “What better place to put a Black female figure? Not in defiance of the space, exactly, but to have a different idea of beauty there.”