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 journal page for July 12, 1962, Indiana writes that he (and his partner, fashion designer John Kloss) woke up at five in the morning to carry up pieces of wood that he had brought to the edge of the building the prior evening. The artist collected these beams from abandoned local buildings and used them to create sculptures. 

He records that he brought up four pieces: "3 of [the] niched variety ([the] largest ones I have yet procured, a smaller one, and one on wh[ich] [the] niches do not pierce [the] shaft all [the] way through) and a long beam with a haunched tenon."

He notes that they were too exhausted to carry them all the way up to his studio so they left the two heaviest in Kloss' studio.