(1) From Empire Building (N.) past Trinity Church Steeple, up Broadway, New York, U. S. A.

ExpandFavoriteView PDF

Images(2)

Publisher Underwood & Underwood Publishers (American (active Ottawa, KS and New York, NY), 1882 – 1941)

Photographer Unknown artist

Date1902

MediumGelatin silver prints mounted on cardstock

DimensionsMount: 3 1/2 × 7 in. (8.9 × 17.8 cm)

Credit LineGift of Simón de Swaan

Object numberS2023.1.13

Not on view

DescriptionPhoto of Broadway, New York taken from the Empire State Building. The Trinity Church Steeple can be seen on the very left of the picture. Part of an unnamed series; has substantial information printed vertically on the back of the cardstock about the location and the building. Title is printed on back of cardstock in English, French, German, Spanish, Swedish, and Russian.. "

Collections

Photography

Additional Details

Inscribed Recto, bottom right margin: “(1) From Empire Building (N.) past Trinity Church Steeple, up Broadway, New York, U. S. A. / Copyright 1902 by Underwood & Underwood.”

Recto, left margin (vertical) : "Underwood & Underwood. Publishers. / New York. London. Toronto - Canada. Ottawa - Kansas. "

Recto, right margin (vertical): "Works and Studios~ / Washington. D. C Arlington N.J. Littleton N.H."
Verso, staring from the top: "It is a 20-story building on when we are standing now, more than 200 feat above the street level. The Battery, at the S. end of Manhattan island, is half a mile behind us; the North River (part of the Hudson) is at the left, with New Jersey beyond it; the East River spanned by Brooklyn Bridge is at our right. Five miles this famous street leads N. and N. W. up-town, before it reaches Central Parks, and even then the city stretches out 12 miles farther still. / Broadway is one of the most famous business streets on earth. Just east of Broadway here at the right is Wall St. where values almost inconceivable in volume change hands among the stockbrokers, slaping the financial prosperity of the whole country. / Trinity church-spire, at our left, once dominted the street. There has been a church here ever since 1697. In 1703 Queen Anne made the parish a gift of a green field just above here at the left, extending west to the river half a mile away. Now that land is worth millions upon millions. / The early colonists of New York shrewdly foresaw commercial advantages in this location, but their wildest dreams never came near present reality. Even in 1803, when the City Fall was built over near where that Park Row building stands (with its towers crowning 29 stories), this was away up-town "" and the city fathers economized by using cheaper materials in the farther side of the structure, because it was out of sight! / Thirty years ago a building of ten or twelve stories was considered magnificent, but, as trade grew, room had to be made for more fortune-builders and the only direction in which the city could expand was sky-ward. The use of steel skeletons, merely faced with stone, is solving the problem, giving enormous dimensions together with the reg uisite strength to hold weight and resist pressure.
See article on The Modern Business Building. Scribner's Magazine. July, 1897, also maps and histories of New York."
Verso, bottom quarter of the page: "From Empire Building past Trinity Church, up Broadway. (following by the same inscription in French, German, Spanish, Swedish, and Russian.)"