I’ll have to break my one-photo rule on the ONE SHOTS category, which I haven’t previously done. Above is a photo taken sometime in the Fab 50s by previously unheralded photographer Vivian Maier, showing a huge throng facing a speaker who is apparently standing in the middle of 2nd Avenue. The photo isn’t captioned, so I have no idea could have been speaking. It was likely either a labor leader or a stumping politician. In those days, you could draw quite a crowd, with not much on TV and no internet.
The shop on the southwest corner was a five and dime store. Visible further down the avenue was the Stuyvesant Polyclinic, built in 1884 to serve the medical needs of a primarily German population.
Do I use Google Street View? You bet I do, and I enjoy it. Mostly everything from the 1950s view is still there, including the Polyclinic. The corner shop is now “Max Brenn: Chocolate By the Bald Man.”
11/3/11