Photographed by Scott Wolff. Captured from a digital file. Color corrected by Pat Cagney.

Rockefeller Center with Collegiate Church of St. Nicholas in Foreground

Artist Berenice Abbott (American, 1898-1991)

DateDecember 8, 1936

MediumGelatin silver print

DimensionsOverall, Image: 9 7/8 × 7 7/8 in. (25.1 × 20 cm)
Overall, Mat: 16 × 20 in. (40.6 × 50.8 cm)

ClassificationsPhotography

Credit LineGift of Joyce and Robert Menschel in memory of Alice R. and Sol B. Frank

Object number2003.3

Terms

Churches
Building
Sculpture
Black
White
Fifth Avenue
New York

On View

Not on view

DescriptionThis is a gelatin silver print of Rockefeller Center with the Collegiate Church of St. Nicholas in the foreground, at Fifth Avenue and 48th Street in Manhattan, New York. The viewer looks upward, toward the sky, from street-level. The steeple of Collegiate Church of St. Nicholas extends beyond the top edge of the print; various buildings are seen in the background. A shadow covers the front entrance of the Church.

Label TextBerenice Abbott American (1898-1991) Rockefeller Center with Collegiate Church of St. Nicholas in Foreground, December 8, 1936 Gelatin-silver print Gift of Joyce and Robert Menschel in memory of Alice R. and Sol B. Frank to the Chrysler Museum of Art 2003.3 ~ The photograph is reproduced as number 67 in Abbott's Changing New York, published in 1939. The following text was reproduced alongside the photograph. The Collegiate Church of St. Nicholas at Fifth Avenue and 48th Street was pronounced by the late Dean Stanley of the Church of England to be the finest piece of ecclesiastical architecture he had seen in America. Rising above it, the steel skeleton of Rockefeller Center's Time & Life Building and the white tower of the RCA Building are a dramatic index of change in the metropolis. Inspired by the work of Eugène Atget, Berenice Abbott made a series of photographs of New York documenting the rapidly changing cityscape. In the 1930s, old buildings were demolished to allow for the construction of soaring skyscrapers. Abbott worked for the Works Project Administration's Federal Art Project to record the vanishing structures, as well as the construction of new buildings. Her photographs are the finest systematic record of this momentous period in New York City's history. This print was included in the 1981 Chrysler exhibition Portrait of New York: Photographs of New York in the 1930s by Berenice Abbott. In addition to this vintage photograph, the Chrysler collection includes one later print by Abbott.