Eric OlsenMadison Ave between E 93rd St and E 94th StHeart Four · Location 481 · Drawn July 2004Download photograph 1Download photograph 2Download photograph 3Download photograph 4Download photograph 5Download photograph 6Download photograph 7Download photograph 8Download photograph 9Download photograph 10Download photograph 11Video podcast0:00The northwest corner of Madison Avenue and East 93rd Street features a classy brick building addressed the Claremont 1316.0:12Facing onto Madison Avenue, the owners have given permission to ivy to slowly start to dominate the front of the building.0:21The ivy stretches down towards the sidewalk and to the left of the entrance0:26creeps down between two windows with elevated planters in them.0:32The drawing was made sitting on the knee-high hedge just to the left of the first window from the entrance.0:40As of Spring 2006, the ivy has climbed down into the space the drawing was made0:46and I'm sure in the next couple years we'll successfully reach the hedges.0:52This is Eric Olsen. He was drawn in July of 2004. His drawing is counting one person.1:01Have we talked about why the hearts? Like why that shape in particular?1:05No.1:06Why the hearts?1:07There's a lot of reasons. First and foremost, the hearts actually come out of sort of a1:13collage, a mental collage from all of the footage that was being blasted away in1:21the first couple days after the event which we had our towers, people screaming,1:27towers falling, the smoke blowing north of Manhattan. What we're seeing1:33occasionally on the TV were like bumper stickers like I love New York. There was1:39There was a surge of New York pride, so they'd be interviewing somebody with, like,1:44you know, they were obviously picking out people who had hearts on their shirts,1:48the bumper stickers, the cabs, the advertisements,1:51and they would cut from that to, like, people running in the streets1:54away from the World Trade Center collapsing.2:00What Eric Olsen’s parents recall about their son2:03was his ability to see things not as they were, but as they could be.2:09They said he enjoyed whittling away the hours with a block of wood and turning it into something more.2:15They say he loved working in stained glass and the way it could change the color of light.2:21Olson, a firefighter with Ladder Company 15.← Location 480Heart Four · Location 481Location 482 →
