Vintage New York - Tumblr Posts

New York City 1940s photographs by Stanley Kubrick for LOOK

The Art of Death †

•─────────────────⋅ᓚᘏᗢ⋅────────────────•

ꕤ ─ Rated (?) : Will add soon. Proceed with caution! (it is a little vulgar)

ꕤ ─ Synopsis : Walter Collier, a feared and powerful man who once ruled New York’s underworld with an iron fist. Diagnosed with terminal lung cancer at 27, he finds himself unexpectedly captivated by a mysterious artist, Miss Reed. As Walter’s life unravels, his obsession with her art—and the woman behind it—leads him to confront his own mortality in a city he once thought he owned.

ꕤ ─ Author's Note : Hello everybody! This is quite literally my first post. I'm posting here to make sure I'm on top of my writing schedule but sometimes I may not be able to post haha. I'm just trying to improve my writing, I hope you can offer constructive criticism. I really hope you like it, its something I whipped up in less than an hour. Lots of love, Dove ❦︎

ꕤ ─ 1.39k words

first >> second (coming soon<3)

•─────────────────⋅ᓚᘏᗢ⋅────────────────•

Walter Collier was no ordinary man. He was a man shrouded in mystery, tainted by the worst sins committed by mankind. He was a man capable of any feat, a feared man. A man who took over New York in the forties just with a few calculated moves. A man said to be able to move mountains with a singular snap of his fingers, Walter Collier was no ordinary man. But by every definition he was no more unique than you. At age 18 he’d taken over most underground bootlegging operations of the big apple. He keeps reminding himself of these facts when now, at age 27, he lay on his doctor’s bed. Dying. Walter Collier was no ordinary man but by god he had an ordinary condition. Lung cancer. 

“Well Walt, those Cuban cigars do that to ya,” his doctor, AJ, spat out. His thick accent barely makes sense in Walter’s ears. He hates it. He hates that he can’t hear through AJ’s accent well enough to figure out exactly what kinds of drugs to shoot himself up with,

“...stage three.”

“My cancer’s stage three?” 

“I’m afraid that you could consider it a stage 3.75, Walt.”

Well fuck. 

Walter walks home. He likes that about this city. You walk long enough, you reach your destination soon enough. He’s not made for cars. He's not a tall man but he makes up for it with his gait. He walks like he owns the city, and in a way he does. It is his city. Every piece of New York runs on his money, he’s sure the only reason the economy has not collapsed is because of him. New York is him. Through and through. A born and bred New Yorker loves this city more than a mother loves their child. 

And as every born and bred New Yorker’s first museum, he finds himself at the Met. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Now, Walter would never admit this out loud. But, He’d always fancy himself some art. No self respecting criminal would ever work with Walter again if he had revealed that he goes through his art collection time and time again. Each stroke brings a deep sense of satisfaction to him, he’d tried once, painting. But all that came out of that was a messy, muddy mess. He hates anything less than perfection. 

Understandably, he’d torched it. No one was to see it.

Most of his men, or as he likes to call them, his friends, thought the only reason Walter collected art was to look bougie. Impress the ladies. It was the fifties after all. Every woman fancied a man with a penthouse filled up with art people can barely understand. Walter was kind enough to let them think that – to think that he’d only spend this absorbent amount of money to get in a few socialite’s panties and leave. But no, he liked it. He liked art. 

He makes his way on over to a self portrait. A small one in fact, barely known. Water color. He’d always loved water color. It was one form of art he could not mess up even if he had wanted to. The painting was ordinary if anything. A man speculated to be biracial holding up his painting tools. Nothing out of the ordinary. But when he saw it for the first time, It was like hearing the most beautiful melody for the first time. He keeps going back to that singular painting just to recreate the same feeling he had had when he first laid his gun-metal blue eyes on it. 

He saunters on over, his hands in his suit pocket, his head down. Thumbing a pocket watch over and over until the polish faded. He looks up and… it's a woman. 

Thick brownish red hair tied up in a french knot. Freckles all over her back, he wonders how far down they travel, how many of them he can count until he loses track. Skin spotless and undeniably clean. Her back turned to him, all he can see are her white kitten heels and the black dress she’s wearing. Off shouldered with little pearls lining her neck. He can see the pull of her earring backing. Ah. She is one of those. Snobby little rich girls with no sense of taste, he can see her now, sneering at the canvas—

She turns around and the only thing he can think of, the only thing he can feel is the beautiful melody rocking his body. Or cancer. The first thing he notes about her is how… soft she looks. They aren't cut from the same cloth, that's for sure. The back of her right hand riddled with charcoal, he knows what that means. She’s an artist too. Her eyes gloss over him completely and before he’s done memorizing her face and she leaves. 

He can’t stop looking. At her, she walks prettily, looks prettily and in a moment of absolute stupidity, he follows her. 

He watches her watch, she's far better than any painting, any sculpture, hell any photograph he had ever seen before. He’s sure he’s seen prettier women, women with more bust, more to offer. But she… she has the most wonderful brown eyes begging to see through every one of his secrets. 

He knows it's late… nearing almost three hours since Walter Collier stepped into the Met and stopped to watch her. But he can’t stop. She stops, he stops. Her eyes rake over a painting and his rake over the curve of her lips. Plump and beige, the pink of her lipstick bitten off in silent contemplation. He can’t help it. He’s observant. 

Most everyone is gone and she’s still walking. She makes a turn and so does he. He looks straight and there she is, impossibly close to him.

“Can I help you,” she asks.

“Help me?”

“Help you,” she confirms.

He smiles and she looks almost offended if not for the slight twitch on the corner of her lips 

“I don't think so,” he responds almost happily.

“Why are you following me?”

“Am I?”

“Yes, you are.”

A beat passes then two. 

“What’s your name?”

A laugh– no, a bark resembling a laugh tumbles out of her mouth.

“You want my name?”

She looks undeniably pretty. Her cheeks are rosy, bangs sticking to her forehead. Eyes wide and brows furrowed, her chin turned upward. Looking at him like he was scum. He couldn’t stop staring at her. 

“Yes,” he replies, almost breathless.

She’s thinking about it. Her eyes are like a window into her mind. Her face voices out what she can’t. 

“Miss Reed.”

“Your full name, Miss Reed?” 

“Absolutely not.”

Walter smiles. He looks back at her hands. Her nails look well done, she’s holding a purse and he’s been around enough socialites to know that that brand costs a pretty penny. She hasn’t got an engagement ring on her. The back of her hand is still smudged with charcoal.

“You’re an artist, aren't you Miss Reed?”

Her face relaxes and his brows furrow. He’s a strange man making observations of her, she should be alarmed. 

“You’re a fan,” she beams.

“I’m afraid not.”

Miss Reed’s face is back to being confused. 

“If you aren’t familiar with my works then how do you know me?”

“I do not.” 

“You just said I was an artist, how do you know that?”

“I was asking.”

“Tell me mister, do you go around asking every lady in the Met if she is an artist or is it just me?”

“Charcoal”

“...What?” “There’s charcoal on the back of your right hand… I just assumed you were one.”

She looks at Walter as if he’d sprouted another head and started singing in French. 

“Still that is no reason to follow a lady around.”

“No it isn’t.” “Then why did you?” “I think you’re pretty.”

“You–” She stops herself. Walter looks pleased with himself. He’d always been a bit of a ladies’ man–

“No.”

…No?

“No…?”

“No,” she confirms. “I haven't even asked you anything yet.”

“You don’t have to. Now I bid you adieu mister…?”

“Walter. Walter Collier.”

She nods and leaves. And he can't help but watch her. She walks like a swan, her walk as graceful as a leaf in the wind. If not more.

Goodbye<3