I’m a rabbit who’s never left his warren. My family has lived on York Avenue in Manhattan since 1896. I own the horseshoe that hung over the front door of my great-grandparents’ apartment at #1403. I already have 1500 old photographs of Yorkville, but nothing pumped me up like my recent discovery of the Walker Evans collection on the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s website. One of the 20th Century’s greatest photographers, Evans lived at 441 East 92nd Street during the 1930s, 40s, and 50s (the building’s footprint is now part of the Issacs/Holmes public housing development). Collectively, Evans made a Yorkville symphony of memories by taking thousands of pictures of the neighborhood: inside his apartment, out on his roof, and all around the surrounding streets. The breweries, the waterfront, and the towering garages are all there, before demolition and before the highway. Whether you are from Yorkville or not, you will relate to this passionate view of a working-class neighborhood’s past: the way it battled a Depression, prepared for and fought a World War, and then jumped aboard a train of progress.
Photograph by Walker Evans, East 92nd Street, 1938
Photograph by Walker Evans, 92nd Street & York Avenue, 1940
Photograph by Walker Evans, Neighborhood of Yorkville
And some photos from my own collection:
My family on 75th Street & York Avenue in front of their fruit store, June 1906
The horseshoe that my great-grandfather, Antonino Cuccia, nailed over his front door in 1896. It now hangs over my own front door.
Dennis John Ferado
Wonderful old photos