[58 Eldridge Street, Manhattan, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]
On the Lower East Side this morning, three-tenths of a mile from the Tenement Museum at 103 Orchard Street. The sign points to no. 58, but it was the laundry at no. 60 that made me stop here. I’ve seen laundry hanging via fire escapes in a tax photograph before, but not as we see laundry hanging here. If you click for large, you’ll see that poles extend from the fire escapes so that clotheslines can be strung to them from apartment windows. You may also notice an observer at a window.
The &c. here includes commerce: a drugstore with Ex-Lax advertising, an advertisement for Heinz Ketchup (“Biggest Flavor Bargain”), the ramshackle something-stand (if that’s a newsstand, the newspapers are well hidden), Kaplan Brothers Wholesale Dry Goods and Rugs, Goldberg’s Restaurant, and Witty Brothers. Henry and Samuel Witty’s clothing establishment appears to have been a Lower East Side fixture. You can see a smidge of the enormous vertical sign on the right edge of the photograph and a larger smidge of the rooftop sign above. Monk Eastman, a well-known gangster, was wearing a Witty Brothers suit when he was shot to death in December 1920:
The body was taken to the Morgue, where a label on the inside coat pocket of a good suit of clothes was found to be marked “E. Eastman. Oct. 22, 1919. No. 17434 W. B.” The suit was made by Witty Brothers of 50 Eldridge Street. Henry Witty of that firm said over the telephone he had made the suit for Monk Eastman, whose tailor he had been for many years.
[The American Jewish Chronicle (1916). Click for a larger view. The Century Dictionary (1911): “Skeleton suit, a suit of clothes consisting of a tight-fitting jacket and pair of trousers, the trousers being buttoned to the jacket.” The Clothier and Furnisher (1919): “The so-called skeletonized suit lacks the
foundation of the lined suit, and thus presents added difficulties in cutting and fitting.”]These Eldridge Street buildings are still standing.
*
An assiduous reader discovered that 60 Eldridge Street was the birthplace of Ira Gershwin.
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More photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives (Pinboard)
comments: 12
Unusually sharp photo
That’s what I thought. The versions at 1940s.nyc are for some reason much sharper than those available at the Municipal Archives.
the sharpness of the photo is really good! i found this photo very fascinating to study. the third building from the left with the bay windows: the bay windows look different on every floor and they don't really seem to match the windows in the middle of the building. the clothes lines on the top floor interesting. i was wondering if the lines were movable so that you could move them away as the clothes were hung up.
kirsten
The symmetrical design of that building is curious. I wish I knew how the laundry worked. My Brooklyn childhood had a clothesline that stretched from a back porch to a pole behind an apartment building on the next street. It always seemed amazing to me that the laundry could be sent out into deep space and be brought back again via a clothesline.
Kirsten, did you spot anyone at a window?
yes! i found a female on the top floor window near the fire escape. very cool as she is really in focus. the one thing i meant to write about is the store on the street with all of the coca cola signs. it looks like they made a store front and that one can order at the window.
kirsten
ps with my opti-visor it almost looks like there is another person on the second balcony in the third building over from the left with what looks like a broom. i think that some of the poles poking out from the building have pulleys on the end for the clothes line to rotate. but then again i could be seeing things!!! cool story about your laundry experience.
I think that is another person. Maybe hanging laundry?
I misunderstood – I thought you were wondering if the poles themselves were removable. Yes, clotheslines worked with a wheel at each end so you could push the line out and pull it back in.
When I was an undergraduate there was a short-lived coffee stand located across from a classroom building on a dead-end street, something like the stand in this photograph. I think it might’ve been in front of a fenced vacant lot. I remember that there were considerable suspicion that this stand was selling more than coffee.
Apparently Ira Gershwin was born in #60
Who knew? Obviously not me. Here’s a page with some background.
here's another view
https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/62d3e030-c5d7-012f-37ef-58d385a7bc34?canvasIndex=0#:~:text=%3Ciframe%20src%3D%22https,frameborder%3D%220%22%3E%3C/iframe%3E
And already with a stand in front. Thanks!
Guessing the newspapers were situated on those two crates, and sold out
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