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. 

In his entry for December 2, 1961, Indiana discusses his work A Divorced Man Has Never Been the President. He includes a sketch of one of the five green "US" circles, and notes "the blue US asserts itself, built over [the] trace of [the] gesso, covered by a second coat of green."

Indiana also records heading uptown to meet J. (his partner, fashion designer John Kloss) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where they "see [the] two million dollar Rembrandt—briefly, [that] is—and a broken egg by Penn, [the] photographer." He also notes that they had dinner at the Limelight, and picked up laundry that had been left for over a week.