WILLIAM GOLDBERG
WILLIAM GOLDBERG
771 Broadway at East 9th Street
MAY 7, 1937. ABBOTT FILE 239

At the corner of East 9th Street, William Goldberg's barrage of advertising attracted attention to this drab stretch of Broadway. Passing up major landmarks in the area--the venerable Grace Church a block north and Cooper Union two blocks southeast--Abbott chose Goldberg's tawdry signs, "invit[ing] you upstairs" to buy a suit for $9.95. She stood in front of the monolithic Wanamaker's department store across 9th Street. Abbott printed the image in two versions: full frame, showing an expanse of cobblestoned street (Abbott File 239), and cropped, in which the signs hug the frame to become a ready-made cubist collage.

In 1953, this commercial loft was replaced by a 15-story apartment building, a response to the demand for middle-class residences bordering the increasingly gentrified Greenwich Village.

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