WATERFRONT: SOUTH STREET
OCTOBER 25, 1935. ABBOTT FILE 32

SOUTH STREET AND JAMES SLIP
APRIL 1, 1937. ABBOTT FILE 228

Sailor's Bethel, 1932 (CGLI)

Front and South Streets, both built on landfill in the eighteenth-century, converged at James Slip to produce a triangular cobblestoned expanse. Twice Abbott photographed this open vista, set against the crowded spires of Wall Street south of the Brooklyn Bridge, once in the first month of the project and again fifteen months later. In the first view, the Wall Street towers dominate, and in the second, taken at a greater distance and slightly south, the famous Singer Tower is visible, and a row of commercial buildings on South Street is more clearly delineated. Of particular interest is the gospel mission at the corner of James Slip, warning one and all to "be sure your sin will find you out."

South Street: Waterfront, file map

Abbott's interest in the mission was not new; in 1932, she published a close-up of this corner under the title Sailor's Bethel.

A map showing Abbott's camera angle clarified this unusual streetscape, which has dramatically changed since Abbott's day. The elevated F.D.R. Drive looms overhead, and its exit ramp fills the southern half of the expanse. In 1952, the commercial buildings were replaced by a huge public housing project, the Governor Alfred E. Smith Houses. The pointed tops of 60 Wall Tower and 40 Wall Street still dominate the skyline, but their dramatic effect has been blunted by the dull uniformity of several shorter, flat-topped office towers.

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