WEST SIDE EXPRESS HIGHWAY AND PIERS 95-98
From 619 West 54th Street
NOVEMBER 10, 1937. ABBOTT FILE 295

Ramp: West and 57th Streets, discarded image

The stretch of the elevated West Side Highway between 46th and 59th Streets opened just one month before Abbott took this photograph. From the roof of Warner Brothers Pictures, Inc., she revealed the gentle curve of this new stretch of road. In 1936, Abbott had photographed the highway's West 57th Street entry ramp, showing how traffic was obliged to flow up and down Twelfth Avenue (West Street), as segments of the highway were under construction, but she discarded the image from the project.

The building where Abbott stood is still occupied by various film and video companies. Due to "deferred maintenance," the elevated highway lasted less than fifty years and was torn down in 1982. Although the waterfront to the south remains active with cruise ships, the USS Intrepid Museum, a heliport, and the Chelsea Piers, this section is abandoned.

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