ROPE STORE, PEERLESS EQUIPMENT CO.
FEBRUARY 15, 1936. ABBOTT FILE 68

ROPE STORE, PEERLESS EQUIPMENT CO.
189 South Street
MAY 3, 1938. ABBOTT FILE 296

Abbott photographed the corner of South Street and James Slip on several occasions , and twice photographed the corner rope store, the Peerless Equipment Company. Erected in 1902 as a saloon, the building became a store for marine equipment in 1926. The ornamental columns and pressed-tin walls, which simulated brick and were bordered with a classical egg-and-dart motive, are the only hints in Abbott's photograph of the shop's prior use. Filled with rope, chains, anchors, and buoys, the corner in Abbott's photograph of the interior hardly suggests the spacious 45-x-20-foot room with 12-foot ceilings.

The exterior view of the Peerless Equipment Company is one of Abbott's more ingenious compositions. The reflection of the Brooklyn Bridge cables in the shop's windows suggests a ship's rigging. "Jesus Saves," proclaimed on the wall of the Gospel Mission across the street, adds what Abbott later called an "amusing" note to the picture (O'Neal, 98).

Return to the Lower East Side