Pbenjay's Blog

Thinking it would be a good day to go for a walk, Peter and I set out to the Museum of the City of New York on Fifth Avenue and East 103rd St.  We wanted to see  Charles Adams’ New York , a collection of his cartoons and New Yorker covers. While there, we saw another really interesting exhibit; Cars, Culture and the City.

Charles (Chas.) Adams was one of the quirkiest, cleverest cartoonists of our times.  He was best known for his black humor and macabre characters. He grew up in Westfield, New Jersey where he often hung out in a nearby cemetery and was particularly attracted to a sometimes vacant Victorian mansion in the neighborhood, which was the inspiration for the Adams Family (his creation) house.  He was a prolific artist, his works number in the thousands.  He died in 1988, suffering a heart attack while indulging in one of favorite passions;  he was sitting in one of his vintage cars!

The Adams Family grew out of the strangely creepy characters appearing in his cartoons.

An Adams Family Outing

The following is an example of some of his wry sense of humor.

As for the Cars exhibit, it is superbly done integrating, photos, automobile advertising, postcards, sales brochures, sketches of many roadway proposals for the City, original signage and even a continuous film strip of cars in New York City in the movies.