ALLEN STREET, NOS. 55-57
Between Hester and Grand Streets
FEBRUARY 11, 1937. ABBOTT FILE 208

Allen Street, variant image

On the same day, two blocks east from Chicken Market, Abbott photographed the Second Avenue El and adjacent shops on Allen Street. The street was filled with Jewish clothing merchants and brass and copper shops, both of which are featured in the photograph. On the window of Cohen and Sons, dress manufacturers at 55 Allen Street, is a Yiddish sign announcing "cheap for store-keepers and peddlers." Abbott exposed three negatives of this site, two of which included a peddler carrying his wares. She rejected these versions for the deep perspective of the empty street. Without the peddler, the spotted shadows of the El are the photograph's central subject. Abbott's claustrophobic rendering of Allen Street is powerful but misleading. In 1932, the street was almost tripled in width, from 54 to 138 feet. Abbott avoided the open space of the east side of the street in favor of the constricted space of the west.

The El was torn down in 1942, leaving the street broad and barren. Many tenements remain, but nos. 55 and 57 were razed. The former is now a small parking lot, and the latter was absorbed into a 1970s housing project, the Seward Park Extension.

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