Lynch moved into Fisk’s tiny apartment at 13th and Wood, sharing the corner with a greasy spoon diner, the Heid Building (home of an accordion-fold-envelope manufacturer) and the old city morgue. Lynch would stare out the window at the bodies being dropped off, or the body bags being hosed down outside; after a while, he received invitations to go inside the morgue and see the bodies up close.

…Both Reavey and Samuelson noticed a shift in Lynch’s early paintings, from bright colors to grays and blacks and darker narratives. Samuelson thinks the constant apprehension Lynch felt living in the city may have played a part in that. “You can’t help but have your environment influence you,” he says, noting that at the time he also lived in a somewhat rough part of Philly, about five blocks from Lynch. “A lot of my work has been dark and grey and distorted figures. One of the art critics described my work as grotesque and violent. David got that, too.”