Brooklyn Museum: Photography: Vista: Thames Street, No. 22, Man.

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Vista: Thames Street, No. 22, Man.

When the American photographer Berenice Abbott returned to New York in 1929 after nearly a decade in France, she found a city transformed by modern life. After the Works Progress Administration was established a few years later, she was hired to document the city, producing a large number of often dramatically composed images reflecting its changing features. In this image, Abbott photographed the Trinity and U.S. Realty Buildings (1904−07) on Broadway and Thames Street in the southern part of Manhattan. Older buildings and warehouses sit in the shadow of twentieth-century office towers. Abbott’s steep perspective emphasizes the contrasts in scale and the break between old and new.

Artist: Berenice Abbott, American, 1898-1991
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Dates: 1938
Dimensions: 9 5/16 x 7 1/8 in. (23.7 x 18.1 cm)
Collections: Photography
Museum Location: This item is not on view
Accession Number: X858.24
Credit Line: Brooklyn Museum Collection
Image: Overall, x858.24_PS2.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph, 2008