 |
|
DAILY
NEWS BUILDING Daily News Building,
1931 (CGLI) Founded in 1919 and modeled on the London Daily Mirror, the New York Daily News was America's first tabloid and soon became its best-selling newspaper. In 1939, circulation on weekdays was more than 1.7 million and on Sunday more than 3 million, more than twice that of its nearest competitor. Designed by Raymond Hood and completed in 1930, the Daily News Building at 42nd Street and Second Avenue combined the paper's 9-story plant with a 36-story rental office tower. Although publisher Joseph Medill Patterson was interested only in a midtown location for his plant, Hood gave him a signature building, whose white-and-black brick-striped facade was audaciously stark. Chrysler Building
from the Chanin Building, 1931 (CGLI) Abbott's photograph captured the bold presence of the building, set against the lowly tenements of Kips Bay. Along the East River rose Windsor Tower--part of Tudor City, a $25 million luxury apartment complex built in the 1920s--and the smokestacks of a Consolidated Edison power plant. She took the photograph from the Chanin Building, a 56-story office tower built in 1929 at East 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue. Chanin Building from
the Chrysler Building, 1931 (CGLI) Abbott first photographed the Daily News Building from the Chanin Building in 1931. Singled out in 1932 by Lewis Mumford as "a photograph of another order," this early version was part of a series of Middle East Side skyscraper views, featuring three adjacent giants: the Daily News, Chanin, and Chrysler Buildings. From the Chanin Building, she photographed not only the Daily News Building but also the tower of the 77-story Chrysler Building (1929); from the top of the Chrysler Building, she photographed the decorative crown of the Chanin Building; and from the Daily News Building, she photographed the Chanin and Chrysler Buildings. The 1931 negative of the Daily News Building is now missing; and Abbott may have returned to the site in 1935 to replace a lost or damaged negative. On her second visit, she was unable to regain access to the Chanin Building roof and was forced to photograph from an office on a lower floor. As a result, the perspective is skewed, and the building appears to lean to the left. Abbott noted that she liked this effect. (O'Neal, 134). Chrysler and Chanin
Buildings from the Daily News Building, 1931 (CGLI) Today the view of the Daily News Building from the Chanin Building is obstructed by the Mobil Building (1955). Windsor Tower and the Con Edison plant still edge the river. In 1994, the Daily News moved its editorial offices to the West Side and its plant to New Jersey. Return to the Middle East Side |
