Throughout 1905, an amateur photographer dedicated himself to capturing Broadway, from the bottom of Manhattan to the top. In sun, rain, and snow, at dawn and late at night, C. G. Hine depicted buildings that were threatened by rapid development: outmoded stores, hotels, and theaters, as well as workshops and shanties. Unusually, his survey also foregrounded the precarity of the street’s human occupants, such as sex workers and pushcart vendors, and of its animal, arboreal, and botanical populations. Hine ultimately assembled more than three hundred photographs, along with numerous newspaper clippings and a typed essay, into a three-volume album, titled “From the Sky Scraper to the Wild Flower,” which he donated to the New York Historical in 1917.
This website, and the book that it accompanies, presents 85 of the photographs in Hine’s remarkable album, maps them in space, and explores their contexts and subtexts through short essays. Delve deeper to return to 1905 and witness up-close the radical transformation of Manhattan’s built and natural environments.
Both the book and the website have been made possible by the generosity and support of the New York Historical.
