The size of the diner in Edward Hopper‘s “Nighthawks“, particularly for one allegedly based on an actual diner somewhere in the West Village, has always struck me as cavernous. More like an art gallery abruptly transformed into a greasy spoon. Sure enough, in a 1962 interview with Art Institute of Chicago’s Katherine Kuh, Hopper said the painting “was suggested by a restaurant on Greenwich Avenue where two streets meet.” He added, “I simplified the scene a great deal, and made the restaurant bigger.”
