Nature in the City

As its title suggests, Hine’s album encompasses not only the city but also its rural hinterland – where the wildflowers are.  Hine’s fascination with botanical photography was long-standing; in 1895, he had produced an extra-illustrated edition of the popular field guide, How to Know the Wild Flowers.  While historic preservationists were warning that urban growth endangered ancient buildings, floraphiles warned of its threat to wildflowers.  In 1902, they established the Wild Flower Preservation Society of America at the New York Botanical Garden.

Hine’s botanical interests, however, extended to plant life within the city, especially its trees.  His album commemorates several notable specimens, such as the last surviving elm in St. Paul’s churchyard – said to have been used by George Washington as a hitching post.  But Hine also captured many uncelebrated trees, memorials to quieter and more forgotten histories, before they too succumbed to the opening of new streets.

Along with its flora, Hine documents the city’s fauna – specifically, its horses.  Contrary to assumptions, then and now, about the swift eclipse of equine labor by mechanized transport, his photographs reveal horses still performing numerous tasks along Broadway.  Statistics confirm this persistence: the number and value of urban horses actually increased during the first decade of the twentieth century.

Meanwhile, Manhattan’s geological and topographic features were rapidly disappearing.  Hine photographed hills and rock outcroppings that were about to be blasted and leveled – “wiped . . . off the earth,” as he put it – to make way for apartments; and, conversely, valleys, springs, and brooks soon to be drained and filled in..