Fore, main, mizzen and anker mast; flying, inner and under jib staysails and four lower topsails – the “Theoline” flaunts its rigging against the towers of lower Manhattan. Built in Rockland, Maine, in 1917, the schooner originally made Boston its homeport, New York since 1937. It made trips from New York every three or four months, carrying whatever cargo it could.
When Berenice Abbott photographed “Changing New York” for the Federal Art Project in 1936 (a New Deal program to fund the visual arts) she waited days until the cargo schooner Theoline was on one of its rare visits to Pier 11, unloading potatoes from Massachusetts. She tried many exposures and lenses before producing her great image of the ship’s diagonal rigging superimposed on buildings carefully aligned to be vertical and rectilinear.
Pier 11, near Wall Street, was demolished two years later, and in 1942 the Theoline was wrecked in the West Indies. Abbott captured one of the last depictions of a masted ship serving the port of New York, the interference pattern of crossing lines from two eras and two ideas of structure becoming a graphic analysis of time and space. (It’s poetically fitting that the same bit of waterfront has been proposed for the downtown Guggenheim Museum, which in Frank Gehry’s design provides a new vision of contextual of interference with prim old Wall Street.)
The city’s economic basis from the beginning was its seaport. As New York’s mercantile strength and inland connections grew through the 19th century, the number of piers around the seaward end of Manhattan increased, the cargo tonnage multiplied, and the city population rose. Early photographs of the water’s edge show the bristling activity in the way that only that tall-rigged ships can bristle.
Berenice Abbott was born in Springford, Ohio, in 1898. After graduating from Ohio State University she moved to New York to study journalism, but eventually decided on sculpture and painting. In 1921 she moved to Paris to study with sculptor Emile Bourdelle. Abbot also worked with the surrealist photographer, Man Ray (1923-25), before opening her own studio in Paris. She photographed the leading artists in France and had her first exhibition at the Au Sacre du Printemps Gallery in 1926. Abbott returned to the United States in 1929 and embarked on a project to photograph New York. In 1935 she managed to obtain funding for this venture from the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and its Federal Art Project. In 1936 Abbott joined with Paul Strand to establish the Photo League. Its initial purpose was to provide the press with photographs of trade union activities and political protests. Later the group decided to organize local projects where members concentrated on photographing working class communities. Abbott’s photographs of New York appeared in the exhibition, Changing New York, at the Museum of the City in 1937. A book, Changing New York, was published in 1939. She is also published a Guide to Better Photography (1941). In the late 1950s Abbott began to take photographs that illustrated the laws of physics. Berenice Abbott died in Monson, Maine, in 1991.
“Lost New York” by Nathan Silver
When it was first published in 1968, the critically acclaimed LOST NEW YORK became an instant classic for the way it reawakened a lost city. Now expanded and updated, with 118 new photographs, the book reveals a fresh, true picture of New York as it has lived and grown, with startling reminders of how much that has vanished remains part of us. From the grandeur of the old Metropolitan Opera and Pennsylvania Station to the fabulous lost night clubs of 52nd Street and Harlem, from the opulence of the old Vanderbilt mansions to the Madison Square Garden rooftop where architect Stanford White was shot, this is both a unique testament to New York’s past and a story of the vitality that makes the city continue to connect with us.
Illustrated with rare and stunning photographs and marked by engaging, lively text, this new edition of LOST NEW YORK provides a unique and unforgettable look at the places in New York that are no more. Beyond that, it evokes the significant moments in time and memory that make us reflect on our passions about change and the reasons we remain concerned about the future of cities.
Resources
- Lost New York, page 252 by Nathan Silver 2000
- New York in the Thirties as photographed by Berenice Abbott
- Southwest Harbor Public Library. Allan Morgan Studio, “Capt. John Latty Aboard Schooner Theoline in New York City.”
- Photo Credit: Gift of Lois B. Torf, 1989.8
- New York 1936 – Manhattan skyline from ferry boat is a photograph by Historic New York Collection.
