"Kossoff began teaching at St Martin's School of Art in the Charing Cross Road in 1966. The Young Men's Christian Association at the corner of Tottenham Court Road and Great Russell Street was a familiar sight as he went to and from St Martin's. With its octagonal tower soaring above the nearby commercial buildings, it consciously echoed features of ecclesiastical architecture to emphasise its Christian mission. Built in 1911, it was demolished sixty years later to make way for a giant hotel-cum-hostel complex. Kossoff regretted the destruction of the YMCA building, but found the demolition process exhilarating. He completed four paintings of the demolition in spring 1971, using drawings made in the street. All four show machinery and men on the site, which heaves and swells as the earthworks pile up and are removed. The impending collapse of the tower resonates through each painting, its presence lending structural stability to the composition while at the same time symbolising all that is precarious about its situation."