SHELTER
ON THE WATERFRONT, COENTIES SLIP
Pier 5, East River, May 3, 1938
Abbott File L-1
Although Abbott was certainly drawn to the contrast between this humble "shelter on the waterfront" and the grand skyscrapers in the distance, this metal-sided wooden shack heated by a coal stove was not a squatter's home. Philip Duchamp, who helped build the shack thirty years earlier, had been employed for nine years as caretaker for the pier. His duties were to keep the pier clean and rescue anyone who fell into the river. Although attempted suicides were among the 200 people Duchamp claimed to have rescued, most were drunks who fell off the pier's foot-wide railing in their sleep.
The largest towers in the distance, from left to right are the Farmers Trust Building, 60 Wall Tower, and 120 Wall Street, known in the neighborhood as the "White Elephant." Throughout the 1930s, Abbott took many photographs from Pier 5 and Coenties Slip-the triangular open space across South Street-but the heavy sea winds, jostling the camera's tripod, forced her to underexpose her negatives (O'Neal, 19). This photograph was one of several taken for the project with a hand-held camera, which permitted a shorter exposure.
Abbott did not speak with the men resting by Duchamp's shack, and they ignored her (McQuaid, 372). Her camera's fast exposure allowed her to capture a surprise assault on one of the group.