POWERS AND OLIVE STREETS
Williamsburg
JUNE 1, 1937. ABBOTT FILE 247

Powers and Olive Streets, variant image

Not far from the intersection of Graham and Metropolitan Avenues was the Roman Catholic Church of St. Nicholas, which formed the center of this German immigrant neighborhood. Founded in 1866, the church converted its original building at the corner of Powers and Olive Streets (seen in the photograph) into a school run by Dominican nuns who lived on the church grounds.

A variant image of this scene shows a group of boys from St. Nicholas School gathered in front of an Olive Street candy store. Abbott preferred the version showing an ice-and-coal man at work and a housewife suspiciously eyeing the photographer. As a tourist in Queens, Abbott appreciated "the little out of the way districts, the little poor neighborhoods," which struck her as "weird and dismal" but "interesting." (McQuaid, 360).

This neighborhood has changed little. The Olive Street storefronts are gone, but the other buildings, with new siding and without cornices, remain. The school, without its belfry, stands as well.

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