Weekend, January 25-26, 2025 – ETCHINGS OF OUR 1930’S CITY, MOST NOW GONE OR CHANGED

By admin

Treasure Trove:

The Etchings of Albert Flanagan

Weekend January 26-27 2025

ISSUE #1377
NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY

FROM THE STACKS

The holdings of the New-York Historical Society Library are vast and fascinating. It is always fun to open a box of photos or unroll a set of drawings to discover something new. Recently, a researcher was working with the Printmaker File (PR 58), a collection of aquatints, engravings, etchings, lithographs, and woodcuts, representing work by over 200 artists dating from 1730 to the present. That’s how the delightful etchings of Albert E. Flanagan caught my eye.

Waterfront, New York, 1933

Morning Light, 1934

The Fountain, Central Park, 1933

Skyline, 1933

Flanagan was born in Newark in 1884. He graduated from Columbia University’s School of Architecture in 1910 and worked at several firms over the course of his career, including McKim, Mead & White.  He taught at Columbia and was one of the original members of the Society of American Etchers. His work is in the collections of several other museums and libraries, including the Metropolitan Museum and the Library of Congress. He died in New York City in 1969.

Coenties Slip, New York, 1931

Plaza Group – Towers of Manhattan, 1930. The two buildings at center are the Sherry-Netherland Hotel and former Savoy-Plaza Hotel, which was demolished in 1965 to allow for construction of the present General Motors Building.

Jacob Street, New York, 1931. All the buildings on this street were razed in the mid 1960s and the street itself became part of the Southbridge Towers apartment complex. (Of interest to Bob Dylan fans: Jacob Street was the site of his photo shoot for the cover of the July 30, 1966 edition of the Saturday Evening Post and the 45 RPM release of “I Want You.”)

The detail in Flanagan’s etchings is what is most appealing. It is interesting to consider the time at which they were made, during what many have since referred to as a ten-year hangover from the Roaring ’20s. Though they depict a busy city in the throes of a financial crisis, a city subject to all manner of Modernist movements, and one on the brink of another war, there is a quiet aspect to them that suggests tranquility — a calm response to chaos.

Afternoon Light, 1930

PHOTO OF THE DAY

On as freezing Friday, CBN Older Adult Center celebrated January birthdays and after members Roma, staffer Joanna, Marilyn, Indira and Judy practice a future Conga Line.

CREDITS

This post is by Jill Reichenbach, Reference Librarian, Department of Prints, Photographs, and Architectural Collections.
FROM THE STACKS NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY
JUDITH BERDY

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