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.

At the top of Indiana's journal entry for March 25, 1962, is the note "Studio visit: Joe Heil: U-2" which refers to a studio visit by the collector Joseph Heil, who came with Museum of Modern Art curator Campbell Wylly, and who purchased the herm U-2. Indiana writes that he had been working on The Rebecca so that it would be done in time for their arrival, giving the "letters, and all [the] rest of [the] paining, not done previously, a second coat, particularly [the] black ground."

He also records that it was "an even more scrumptious day: clear, warm, and sunny," and that it brought "some police and an official [to] Jeannette [Park], looking as if they were planning some kind of overhaul [to] my front yard. They caught sight of me in [the] dormer, or at least of Particci [his cat] in [the] gutter."