Private Passage

When Pittsburgh-born sculptor and professor Malcolm Cochran was six years old in 1955, his father earned a Fulbright Scholarship to teach English in Helsinki, the capital and largest city of Finland. That summer, the young boy and his family sailed from New York City to Europe. After a year of living in Finland, they returned to the Big Apple on a Holland America Line ship, the SS Maasdam, and disembarked at the cruise line’s terminal at Pier 40 at the west end of Houston Street in Manhattan. In 2001, the Hudson River Park Trust, which oversees Manhattan’s Hudson River Park, interviewed Cochran for an art commission. The organization’s headquarters were (and still are) located at Pier 40. When Cochran entered the lobby of the building, he realized that it was the former Holland America Line terminal at which he had disembarked on his return from Europe forty-five years earlier. 

Cochran, who at the time was a professor in the Department of Art at Ohio State University, eventually secured the commission. Before he began the design process, he knew that he wanted the artwork to reflect a personal connection that he had with the site. Cochran’s memory of disembarking with his family at the Holland America Line terminal at Pier 40 nearly half a century earlier provided that connection. The result was Private Passage. Completed in 2005 and installed in Hudson River Park’s Clinton Cove, the piece is a thirty-foot-long, eight-and-a-half-foot-wide wine bottle resting on its side. The exterior is made of steel covered with a thermal spray zinc coating and patina. Portholes drilled into the sides, neck, and punt of the bottle reveal a representation of an ocean liner’s interior stateroom on the inside. Based loosely on photographs of interior staterooms on the RMS Queen Mary, the interior is composed entirely of stainless steel, achieving a monochromatic look reminiscent of a platinum print or a still from a Black-and-white film. The room is furnished for a single individual, contains no personal effects, and appears ready to be occupied. By designing it in this manner, Cochran hoped that visitors peering in could imagine themselves in the space about to embark on a solitary journey. A row of portholes on the top of the wine bottle help light the cabin on sunny days. Electric lights incorporated into the furnishings help illuminate the cabin at night or on cloudy days. 

When Cochran was in the process of creating Private Passage in the early 2000s, Clinton Cove was still under construction. Formerly, the area was home to New York City’s municipal concrete plant. Clinton Cove’s unfinished state allowed Cochran the opportunity to coordinate with the landscape architects and choose the precise location for his artwork. As per the artist’s wishes, Private Passage was installed in the middle of Clinton Cove’s granite esplanade near Pier 96. Consequently, the piece has a sense of permanence. It does not suggest that it randomly washed up on the shore or that could easily be swept downstream and into the Atlantic Ocean. 

"Clinton Cove." Hudson River Park. Hudson River Park Friends & Hudson River Park Trust. Web. 13 February 2021 <https://hudsonriverpark.org/locations/clinton-cove/>.

Lynn, Robin and Francis Morrone. Guide to New York City Urban Landscapes. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2013.

"Private Passage." Hudson River Park. Hudson River Park Friends & Hudson River Park Trust. Web. 13 February 2021 <https://hudsonriverpark.org/activities/private-passage/>.

"Private Passage." Malcolm Cochran. Web. 13 February 2021 <https://malcolmcochran.com/?p=209>.