Robert Indiana’s HOPE sculpture and Chase (formerly Chemical) Bank in the Theatre District of New York City
HOPE, THE BANK, AND AMERICAN PYSCHO
There’s the hope of Emily Dickinson’s poem. “Hope is the thing with feathers.” And there’s HOPE. The work of the late pop-artist Robert Indiana on 7th Avenue and 53rd Street. The four letter sculpture with its two tiers. The “O” leaning forward.
Compared to LOVE (on 55th and 6th Avenue) HOPE is the wallflower emotion. Maybe hope is just too broad, too accommodating. One can hope to find love. But can one love to find hope? Sounds like madness. Like the theme of an under-rated recent Broadway musical that ran for just ten weeks.
If you’re a theatre aficionado with a dark side you saw the short-lived American Psycho (Spring 2016). Or as an intrepid fiction-reader you may have read Bret Easton Ellis’s controversial novel that the musical is based on.
If so, it must seem a wild coincidence to see the HOPE statue positioned on the corner near a Chase Manhattan branch. This especially if you were around in the eighties when Chemical Banks were ubiquitous in New York. Before Chemical acquired Chase Manhattan Bank in 1996 and adopted its name.
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