ROCKEFELLER CENTER PARKING SPACE
40 West 49th Street
JUNE 29, 1938. ABBOTT FILE L-16

Rockefeller Center Parking Space, variant image (CGLI)

Abbott took this photograph of a temporary parking lot in the middle of Rockefeller Center from the 14th-floor window of 1-9 Rockefeller Plaza. One year later, the Holland Building at 10 Rockefeller Plaza rose on the site; it included a six-story indoor parking garage, the first of its kind in the city. The 1939 monthly parking rate of $12.50 is less than the current hourly rate of $12.68.

By tilting the camera, Abbott created a sense of disequilibrium, as if the parked cars were in motion. An upright variant, which shows the lot flanked by 48th and 49th Streets, is static by comparison.

Return to the Middle East Side