A sliver of a road across from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Coenties Slip has a rich marine and artistic history. Named after a Dutch family, the Coenties Slip was built before 1766 as a man-made place to dock boats. At that time, the East River came up to what is now Water Street. The Slip was filled in in 1835, and became a street with the same name. Coenties Slip was the location of many book publishers. In fact, Herman Melville mentions Coentie Slip in Moby Dick, published in 1851. In the 1950s, the Slip was home to pop and minimalist artists who formed the Coenties Slip Group, including Agnes Martin, Robert Indiana, and Ellsworth Kelly. Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns were involved in the group, although they did not live on Coenties Slip. Since 2006, Bryan Hunt’s sculpture “Coenties Ship” has commemorated the history of the Slip.
