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 first entry on this journal page, dated February 7, 1959, Indiana records being in Chinatown, and spending another evening at the Plaza Hotel's nightclub the Persian Room, the "plush place."

Indiana returned to the page a year later, on February 7, 1960, with a sketch of a 38 1/2 x 11 1/2 inch metal, gesso, and wood construction, A Roman Error (destroyed). He records that he added diagonal (barber pole) stripes to the unfinished construction, the disc of which he found in front of Jack Youngerman's house across the street.