HESTER STREET
85 Hester between Allen and Orchard Streets
MAY 3, 1938. ABBOTT FILE L-2

Hester Street is so narrow in this block that Abbott could capture an extreme overhead view from a third-story window across the street. Two blocks east was 55 Hester, the site of Abbott's Chicken Market (Plate 10). These 1898 tenements are still standing, and their first-floor tenants are still clothing merchants. The stoops, however, have been replaced by street-level shop windows with roll-down security doors, and the pushcarts are gone.

Abbott took several overhead views of Lower East Side pushcarts, a frequently photographed picturesque subject. None, including Hester Street, are particularly distinctive. Probably by accident, Abbott captured two gypsies on the stoop of 85 Hester, part of a household that was extensively documented by photographer Alexander Alland in 1940.

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