Photo Illustration by Tony Cenicola/The New York Times Elaine Kaufman, center, and scenes from her heyday loomed large in the space under construction.The idea behind the above photo illustration was to conjure the spirit of Elaine’s, the famed Upper East Side bar and restaurant, in a setting where it was now invisible.
The photographer Tony Cenicola and I infused the history of Elaine’s into the Writing Room, which will open in the next few weeks, by projecting archival photographs from The New York Times onto the walls of the construction site.
Above, an image of a young Elaine Kaufman, smoking indoors, baths the walls of the gutted dining room. She is surrounded by star patrons. Below, we used an exterior shot from 2010, taken the day Ms. Kaufman died, and lined the photograph onto the currently boarded-up doorway.
Photo Illustration by Tony Cenicola/The New York Times The Writing Room will open soon on the Upper East Side, where Elaine’s once flourished. A 2010 photo of the exterior of Elaine’s, complete with patrons, was projected onto the walls.Mr. Cenicola’s mastery enabled a collaboration among photographers from the past and present, commemorating the energy and life that existed there and that will hopefully guide, not overshadow, the Writing Room.
