New York poet Frank O'Hara once wrote that he could not delight in a simple patch of grass if there were not some evidence of his beloved city nearby: a record shop, a train, or ``some other sign that people do not totally regret life.''

O'Hara, who also worked as a curator and art critic, likely would have enjoyed the slate of works now at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach. New York, New York: The 20th Century presents more than 60 paintings, photographs and works on paper that feature Gotham as a central character in five locales: on the waterfront, in avenues and streets, in the park, on the town and among the tallest of buildings.

Yes, there is a smattering of faces and flesh throughout -- pedestrians surging through Times Square, women in winter coats, a cop, a showgirl and even the bronzed head of Alice, ensconced on a pedestal and far from Wonderland. Yet, in these images culled from the Norton's permanent collection, people are still secondary players, largely eclipsed by odes to commerce or the natural landscapes that emerge amid pilings and steel.

``It just seemed that the majority of the images we had did not have people in their scenes, and we decided to continue with that theme,'' explains Marisa Pascucci, the museum's curator of American art.

Many of the paintings in New York, New York -- such as the exquisitely teal-hued Concert Stage by Everett Shinn -- were trundled straight over from the museum's American gallery, although a number of their accompanying placards were left behind.

``There's not much written info here. I really wanted people looking at the artwork, not reading about it,'' Pascucci says. ``Visitor-service surveys show that people look at a particular painting for 45 seconds.'' She points toward a wall-sized oil on panel by Lawrence Gipe. ``Can you look at this for 45 seconds and understand it?''

Probably not. Panel No. 4 is a complex joust between humanist ideology and early 20th century planner Robert Moses, who marshaled the demise of many New York City hamlets to make way for what he considered the more important business of highways and bridges.

Gipe quotes Moses in bloodied letters at the tableau's base (The Most Significant Panorama that Modern Civilization Offers!) and frames the city's skyline with the gallows-like shadow of a construction crane. Industrialization is the enemy, and New York appears to burn in the distance from its attack.

Other works romanticize the same iconic structures. Andreas Feininger's Elevated Trestle, Division Street, photographed in 1941, reveals a grid of outdoor subway tracks as a thing of beauty latticed with sunlight and shadow. Known for his unpopulated studies, Feininger owns four slots in the show; his picture of midtown Manhattan styles the metropolis as sleepy and regal, far removed from the toil of its workers or the idea that progress might come at their expense.

More than six decades later, Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao constructs the Bronx as a sort of Camelot. Commissioned by the Bronx Museum of Art, Liao spent six hours hiking through the borough with a large-format camera. The result, Grand Concourse, was recently acquired by the museum and is a composite of 40 shots that detail greenery, wide sidewalks and a baseball stadium and federal building that glow like temples. Although idealized, the settings are entirely recognizable.

``The tricky and wonderful thing about photography is that there is something significant about what the camera can do,'' says Charles Stainback, the museum's curator of photography who helped select works for the show. ``And that comes from the importance we, as people living in the 20th and 21st centuries, have attached to photographic images. ``We always think about them as being about facts, about reality, something that actually existed in front of the camera. When we look at a photograph, we know something about it.''

A viewer might easily view the show's abundant paintings in a similar light. With its snooty-faced patrons staring past each other, Art Opening by William Gropper could easily depict an imminent Art Basel soiree, at which most guests ignore what's on the walls, because they are too involved with themselves. And Edward Hopper's August in the City, an oil on canvas, should be instantly familiar to Miamians, whose urban center empties out in high summer, leaving the city to the contemplation of those who know it best.

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