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[The El, 2nd and 3rd Avenue Lines, Bowery and Division Street, Manhattan]

1936
Not on view
Manhattan’s elevated (El) train lines fascinated Abbott when she first photographed the city in 1929. Seven years later, she used her large-format camera to capture this shadowed vista beneath the El in Chinatown. "I was right in the middle of the street on a little island," she recalled. "This was one of the occasions when it was downright dangerous to document New York, with traffic whizzing by on both sides, but it was very important to get in exactly the right position to make the photograph work."

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: [The El, 2nd and 3rd Avenue Lines, Bowery and Division Street, Manhattan]
  • Artist: Berenice Abbott (American, Springfield, Ohio 1898–1991 Monson, Maine)
  • Date: 1936
  • Medium: Gelatin silver print
  • Dimensions: Image: 9 11/16 × 7 5/8 in. (24.6 × 19.3 cm)
    Sheet: 9 7/8 × 7 15/16 in. (25.1 × 20.1 cm)
  • Classification: Photographs
  • Credit Line: Gift of Phyllis D. Massar, 1971
  • Object Number: 1971.550.2
  • Rights and Reproduction: © Berenice Abbott / Commerce Graphics Ltd. Inc.
  • Curatorial Department: Photographs

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