Robert Indiana kept a series of illustrated journals during the late 1950s and 1960s, in which he discusses the development of his work as well as his daily life on Coenties Slip.

Indiana's journal page for August 5, 1961, includes a sketch of Coenties Slip West, with the note "add more color [to] 'Coenties Slip West'." The artist also records that he finished the first coat of his "Slip" painting (The Slips). 

Indiana writes that J. (his partner, fashion designer John Kloss) was restless as he was not able to go to the beach, so they walked to Brooklyn, first through Brooklyn Heights, which Indiana notes was new to Kloss, and then up to Flatbush to check out the movies. He records returning to Brooklyn Heights for dinner and a visit to the Hotel St. George (a center of gay male life from the 1920s through the 1970s).