Walker Evans (1903-1975), a documentary photographer best known for his depictions of southern sharecroppers during the Great Depression, store signs and street signs in cities and towns, and the whole of American vernacular, spent a morning in the summer of 1938 taking photographs, for reasons not entirely clear, of a street block on E. 61st Street in New York.
By the time he took this stroll and shot
these pictures, now housed in the FSA-OWI photo collection of the Library of Congress, Evans had already left the Resettlement Administration and the Farm Security Administration, under whose employ he

had famously photographed the plight of southern farm workers.
Evans was back living in New York, preparing for an exhibit of his photographs and working, along with James Agee, on the upcoming
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941). Apparently, he was also in need of income that summer of '38, and letters indicate that Evans worked out something with his former government boss, Roy Stryker, for a short assignment for the Farm Security Administration.
According to the text accompanying Evans' photographs on the Library of Congress website, "These photographs taken in New York City probably represent the outcome of the matter, although nothing in the agency's files explains the selection of the subject, if Evans was paid, or whether he and Stryker were satisfied with the pictures."

Hmmm. At least we have the pictures. These black and white photographs of tenement buildings, children sitting on stoops, the street life and store signs along E. 61st Street between 1st and 2nd Avenue constitute just one visual fragment of the era, the Great Depression, as well as the specifics of place - New York rental apartments of three of four bedrooms, shared bath facilities and the vibrant street life of a growing neighborhood.
As LOC indicates, the block of this southern Yorkville neighborhood in the 1930s was largely composed of people of Italian heritage, with Irish and Poles living nearby.
We're not sure exactly what lured Evans to this block on E. 61st that Tuesday morning of August 23, 1938. We know he shot four rolls of film, and as the library presents them in sequence, there's evidence he must have gone up and down the block a few times. The summer light is strong and clear. He could have been hurrying to finish the Stryker assignment, thinking this block would tell the story, but I don't personally buy into the assertion that he found the block convenient because of its proximity to his E. 92nd Street apartment.
It's not that close. The block to the west was, and still is, more conventionally beautiful, part of what is now the Treadwell Farm Historic District, but that block would be too pretty for a Stryker assignment. As Evans gazed down the street that morning, the block between 1st and 2nd Avenues must have come alive for him in some way.
I really enjoyed looking at the photographs. Lovely post.
ReplyDeleteLovely post, Teri. Did you know you can buy prints of Walker Evans' FSA photographs from the Library of Congress? Many of them are even made from the original negatives. Last time I checked, they're fairly reasonably priced. Since the L of C owns the negatives, we in effect own them, so they really only charge the cost of making the prints.
ReplyDeleteSuperb post! Wordless with admiration.
ReplyDelete