Daily News Building

Returning to New York in 1929 after nearly a decade in France, Berenice Abbott found a city transformed by modern life. Hired by the Works Progress Administration to document the city, she produced a large number of often dramatically composed images reflecting the city’s changing features. Abbott shot the Daily News Building looking toward the East River. Located on Forty-second Street between Third and Second avenues, the 1930 skyscraper provided a striking contrast with low-rise houses on nearby streets. It was part of a new booming business district in midtown, spurred by the completion of Grand Central Terminal in 1913. The residential Tudor City in the background had been completed in 1928, shielding what was still in the 1930s an industrial area on the East River. Although the power plant on the river exists today, the Second Avenue elevated train line was torn down in 1942.