WEST STREET BETWEEN WARREN AND MURRAY STREETS
APRIL 8, 1936. ABBOTT FILE 99

Reade Street between West and Washington Streets, discarded image

Known as "The Farm," the area from West to Greenwich Streets and from Murray to Desbrosses Streets contained the city's wholesale distributors of fresh produce. West Street between Warren and Murray Streets surveys the entire neighborhood, showing the heavily trafficked expanse of the thoroughfare, the old commercial buildings along its eastern side, and the encroaching skyscrapers of the financial district. To the south (at right) is the mammoth New York Telephone Building , and in the background (at left) is the Gothic spire of the Woolworth Building on Broadway at Park Place.

Most of the commercial structures along West Street date from the 1880s, when the Hudson River waterfront displaced the East River as New York's primary port. Suspended from the buildings' facades are corrugated metal awnings, which protected fresh fruits and vegetables from the sun, and on their roofs stood advertising billboards, visible to watercraft.

The side streets, seen in the discarded image Reade Street between West and Washington Streets, were lined with warehouses. Abbott's photograph shows the market at rest, with workmen leisurely sweeping debris from the streets. Before dawn, these streets were packed with haggling merchants and workers hauling crates and barrels onto trucks and wagons. In the background looms the Western Union Telegraph Company (1930), stylistically similar to the New York Telephone Building and built by the same architectural firm, Voorhees, Gmelin & Walker.

These blocks were demolished as part of the 1962 Washington Market Urban Renewal Project. The Borough of Manhattan Community College (1980) engulfed the Reade Street site. On the southern end of West Street near Murray Street is now the College of Insurance (1983), funded by nearby insurance companies. The northern end of the block is a parking lot, the future use of which has sparked debate between city and community representatives.

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