GRAND STREET, NOS. 511-513
Between Sheriff and Columbia Streets
APRIL 1, 1937. ABBOTT FILE 231

These two federal style houses, with a residence upstairs and a business downstairs, were typical of New York's early nineteenth-century buildings. They are a remnant of the era when Grand Street, which ran from the East River docks to the Bowery, was one of the city's leading commercial arteries. In Abbott's time, the area was primarily Jewish, as the worn Yiddish theater poster at the far right suggests. George Bungay's Hair Goods occupied no. 513, but the storefront at 511, previously a roofing and skylight company, was empty. Directly across Grand Street--and not photographed by Abbott--was the newly built Amalgamated Dwellings (1930), a celebrated attempt to transplant European modernist experiments in workers' housing to New York.

The houses have survived with some structural changes and are marred by graffiti. No. 511, a Chinese take-out restaurant, has been refaced with white brick, and a second plate-glass window has replaced the doorway at right. No. 513, now painted white, is no longer a business; the lower floor has a single door and two standard windows. Although these buildings still stand, Abbott's subtle study of form and texture could not be duplicated today; the white facades, shrill signs, and graffiti obliterate the subtleties upon which Abbott constructed her tonal harmonies.

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