FOURTH AVENUE, NO. 154
Between Butler and Douglass Streets, Fort Greene
OCTOBER 29, 1936. ABBOTT FILE 180

A few blocks from the busy intersection depicted in Billboards and Signs, Abbott found this boarded-up row of old-law tenements. The row was built circa 1880 for the Irish immigrants who worked on the railroad and road construction drives of that era. Rather than conform with the new fire and sanitation regulations, the Fulton Savings Bank, which owned the buildings, abandoned them. The corner building, however, remained occupied by a radiator products store on the ground floor, with apartments above.

The geometric pattern formed by the blocked windows attracted Abbott's eye, as did the ground-floor profusion of posters for movies (My Man Godfrey), sports (Brooklyn Dodgers vs. Chicago Cardinals), and cabaret (Harlem Nite). Taken one week before election day, the photograph also shows a Democratic Party campaign poster for President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Governor Herbert K. Lehman.

These tenements survived decades of decline and, with Fort Greene's recent revival, have been renovated and are occupied.

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