McCartan Delighted in the Sensual World

By Timothy Sandefur

When Manhattan’s landmark Helmsley Building—then called the New York Central Building—first opened in 1929, the influential art critic Royal Cortissoz called the sculpted clock over its facade “one of the most conspicuous sculptural decorations ever erected in the city.”¹ Almost a century later, tourists still stop to photograph it. Yet few of them would…