MADISON AVENUE AND 39TH STREET, LOOKING NORTH
22 East 40th Street
JULY 2, 1936. ABBOTT FILE 139

General View from the Empire State Building, 1932 (CGLI)

Several months after she made Murray Hill Hotel: Spiral, Abbott returned to the neighborhood to contrast 22 East 40th Street with the Pyne mansion, another relic of Victorian New York. Built before 1876, the mansion had been the home of Moses Taylor Pyne, the scion of an old banking family, who left the bulk of his $100 million estate to Princeton University. After his death in 1921, Pyne's widow remained in her home, resisting realtors' offers. In 1939, when she died, the house was sold and later replaced by an undistinguished five-story building.

In 1932, Abbott had photographed this same site from the top of the Empire State Building, five blocks south and one block west.

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