HENRY STREET
Henry and Market Streets, looking west
NOVEMBER 29, 1935. ABBOTT FILE 48

Just east of New York's civic center lay some of the city's oldest slums. Abbott made the most of this stark juxtaposition, showing the Municipal Building and the Woolworth Building rising above the old-law tenements of Henry Street. Monuments to civic pride and private enterprise, both skyscrapers were built on the eve of World War I.

Because of the fame of the Henry Street Settlement and the Jacob Riis Settlement House at 48 Henry Street (just outside the area depicted in the photograph), the project's research file on Henry Street centered on the history of social reform on the Lower East Side. It included a New York Post article (April, 22 1938) on Jacob Riis (1841-1914) which interviewed his widow and son. Summarizing the legacy of Riis's influential book, How The Other Half Lives, the article concluded, "Whether or not Riis knew it would take the form of government subsidies for low-rent housing, the 'other half' is about to get the break he hoped for."

Ironically, the ancient tenements of Henry Street remain exactly as they did in Abbott's day, accommodating the overflow from Chinatown of recent Asian immigrants. The Woolworth and Municipal Building towers still rise up over the tenements, but they were dwarfed by the twin towers of the World Trade Center, completed in the 1970s.

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