QUEENSBORO BRIDGE I
From Manhattan
MAY 7, 1937. ABBOTT FILE 240

QUEENSBORO BRIDGE II
From Long Island City
MAY 25, 1937. ABBOTT FILE 243

Queensboro Bridge II, variant image

Opened in 1909, the cantilevered Queensboro Bridge spans from 60th Street in Manhattan to Crescent Street in Long Island City. The bridge crosses over Welfare Island, formerly known as Blackwell's Island but renamed in 1921 for the city hospitals on its grounds. In Abbott's photograph, the steel framework of Welfare Hospital for Chronic Diseases, completed in 1939, can be seen (left).

Abbott made two views of the Queensboro Bridge, the first from the 63rd Street Pier in Manhattan, and a second two weeks later from the Long Island City waterfront. The first image juxtaposed the industrial machinery at water's edge with the bridge, which receded diagonally into the distance. The second image contrasted a barge and tugboat in the foreground with midtown Manhattan's skyline in the background. Abbott made two exposures of Queensboro Bridge II, a wide-angle version, which included a workman and two children in the foreground (variant image), and a tele-photo version, which foreshortened the distance between Abbott, the dock and the bridge. Preferring the later version, she observed, "People were always saying, why don't you have more people,...[and] once in a while I'd think maybe I ought to stick some people there, but...it still d[oes]n't tell you much about the people except that they were there." (McQuaid, 402).

Shortly after Abbott's visit, the Long Island City riverfront underwent dramatic change. In 1939, the city erected Queensbridge Houses, a public housing project with 26 six-story buildings, and Queensbridge Park at water's edge. In 1971, Welfare Island was renamed Roosevelt Island.

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