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Oct. 9, 1935. "Broome Street, Nos. 504-506, Manhattan." 8x10 inch gelatin silver print by Berenice Abbott for the Federal Art Project. View full size.
That fellow on the stoop has a fine you-be-damned look to him, doesn't he?
Looks like every structure in the photo still remains - - except for our featured Broome Street address! Note also that the elevated tracks to the right are gone as well. Most of Manhattan converted to the subway system in the 1940s.
The train line on the right is the Sixth Avenue el, not long for the world when this photo was taken (it was demolished in 1938). The scrap metal may or may not have been sold to Japan, giving rise to the rumor that it found its way into munition shells used against American troops in WW II. At least e.e. cummings seemed to think so-- the unnamed soldier in his poem "plato told" ignores the wisdom of the ages until a "bit of the old sixth avenue el in the top of his head" finally schools him.
When the paint fades off the sign, the management is no longer "new."
There's hardly a 90 degree angle in sight, I wonder what year they fell down?
Below is the same view from December of 2008 by Robert Chin where it is featured on his site here.
Although it's unusual to see the word used a verb, Duco was the fast-drying lacquer paint, developed by DuPont in the late teens, that miraculously relieved mass-production from the severe bottleneck caused by slow-drying enamels.
Just where William Goldberg got his signs from.
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