CHICKEN MARKET
55 Hester Street between Ludlow and Essex Streets
FEBRUARY 11, 1937. ABBOTT FILE 206

In 1936, a seven-story tenement was torn down at 55 Hester Street to make way for the one-story chicken market. The replacement of a tall building with a one-story structure, so contrary to development patterns today, was common during the depression. Today the building and its neighbor at 57 Hester are joined by a common facade and house a Chinese-American owned tile company. At 53 Hester, Gertel's Bakery still serves the neighborhood's Jewish community. Its Art Deco chrome-and-blue tile facade suggest that it was built at the same time as the chicken market, perhaps as a pair.

Two researchers tackled the Hester Street chicken market. Charles White translated the Yiddish shop sign--"Strictly Kosher, Chicken Market Fresh Killed Hourly"--and explained the fundamentals of Jewish dietary law, which require a slaughtered animal to be salted to drain away its blood. Sally Sands, never shirking an opportunity for interviews, conducted a citywide survey to determine whether kosher chickens were more expensive than non-kosher chickens. She concluded that they were not. Sands also investigated the medical controversy surrounding kosher regulations: was blood a potential carrier of disease or a healthful source of iron?

To emphasize the exposed rumps of half-plucked chickens, Abbott moved her camera in close under raking light. The chicken market is one of several ethnic food storefronts she photographed. Like Atget's Parisian storefronts, Abbott's often showed shopkeepers peering out at the photographer from behind the plate glass. Unlike Atget, Abbott moved in close to the shop front, allowing the exotic lettering on the window to rest on the picture plane and the shadowy figures behind the glass to contradict the pictorial flatness. With this spatial ambiguity, Abbott added a modernist twist to her mentor's example.

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