FLAM AND FLAM
165 East 121st Street
MAY 18, 1938. ABBOTT FILE 298

Flam and Flam, variant image

The lawyers offices of Flam and Flam stood directly across from the Harlem Courthouse, an imposing palace of justice built in 1891. According to Mrs. Milne, the landlord at the time of Abbott's photograph, the building had been a church until her grandfather bought it and converted it into offices. Flam and Flam, run by the two sons of founder David Flam, had occupied no. 165 for 25 years. Only weeks after Abbott's photograph, the firm moved to larger quarters at 181 East 121st Street.

Although Flam and Flam proved an irresistibly humorous title for the photograph, the building's other tenants--Levy, Katz, Mirabella, and Kemp--reflect East Harlem's ethnic mix in the 1930s. Standing on the courthouse steps, Abbott made four exposures; she rejected those which included a pair of posed lawyers, perhaps deciding that they detracted attention from the names stencilled on the plate glass.

Today no.165 is an overgrown vacant lot, and no. 167, like the rest of the block, is abandoned. The courthouse, long neglected, was granted landmark status in 1967 and is under renovation.

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