Allen Street

Abbott was an important chronicler of New York City in the 1930s, and strove to capture the constantly varying phenomenon of city life in her photographs. She wrote: "To make the portrait of a city is a life work and no one portrait suffices, because the city is always changing." Allen Street is part of her 1939 publication, Changing New York. The photo shows a narrow street scene, lined with Jewish clothing merchants and brass and copper shops, which runs beside the Second Avenue El tracks, on the far left. The dense urban landscape documented here has since been significantly altered, as Allen Street was tripled in width in 1932, and the El was torn down in 1942.