CONTRASTING 331 EAST 39TH STREET WITH CHRYSLER BUILDING AND DAILY NEWS BUILDING
NOVEMBER 9, 1938. ABBOTT FILE L-30

Standing near an abandoned tenement in Kips Bay between Second and First Avenues, Abbott looked northeast toward two glamorous corporate headquarters on East 42nd Street. The campaign posters for Congress affixed to the tenement (lower right), which pit the incumbent Republican John J. O'Connor against the Communist Israel Amter, speak to the neighborhood's Irish and Jewish working-class constituents.

Today a garage and parking lot for Con Edison occupy the site of 331 East 39th Street, and apartment buildings obscure the view of the famous skyscrapers.

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