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New York
Architecture Images-Soho 319 Broadway Landmark |
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architect |
D. & J. Jardine |
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location |
319 Broadway |
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date |
1869 |
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style |
Italianate |
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construction |
Cast Iron Facade |
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type |
Shop |
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notes |
A few blocks
north of City Hall at 317 and 319 Broadway were "twin" cast-iron facades
(1869) known as the "Thomas Twins". Despite the loss of their tall stoops
and the addition of glass storefronts and fire escapes, the original
appearance of these nineteenth-century commercial buildings was still
apparent in their upper floors. By photographing from the roof of a
two-story structure across Broadway and showing the entire row of intact
cast-iron facades on the north side of Thomas Street, Abbott captured the
graceful rhythm of cast-iron New York. She took two exposures—one with the
sun shining evenly and the other with a sharply cast shadow breaking up the
row's architectural uniformity—and chose the latter, more complex
composition.
At the same site, Abbott made a second photograph depicting a shoe repair sign hanging diagonally from the corner of 319 Broadway. Her interest in pictographic shop signs (see also Gunsmith) may have been inspired by Eugène Atget's Parisian examples. Seen from below and slightly out of focus, the sign seems to be suspended against the cast-iron grid across Thomas Street. In a variant, Abbott came closer to the sign, eliminating the traffic light (left) and second-story storefront (right). Although this version more completely isolated the "floating" shoe, it was rejected. In 1971, 317 Broadway was replaced by a nondescript two-story building currently leased by McDonald's, but the remaining "twin" at 319 Broadway was granted landmark status in 1989. In 1974, the entire block behind 319 was torn down for the massive, windowless New York Telephone & Telegraph Long Lines Building. |
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