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2026-10-17

The alley lit by an explosion

Colorized Past
Colorized Past@George Reiner
Jacob Riis, a Danish-born police reporter whose beat was Mulberry Street, made this picture at 59 1/2 Mulberry Street in 1888 1 — one of the first Americans to photograph by flash, powder he fired by hand in rooms and courtyards the sun never reached. He knew how that could go: "With unpractised hands I managed to set fire to the house." In the same chapter he set down that thirty-nine people lived at 59 1/2 that year, nine of them small children, and that five baby funerals left the house. 2 New York demolished the Bend for the park Calvert Vaux had planned, which opened in the summer of 1897 and which Riis called "little less than a revolution." 3

References

  1. 1
    Museum of Modern Art — Jacob August Riis, Bandits' Roost, 59 1/2 Mulberry Street, 1888, gelatin silver print printed 1958 (326.1959)

    moma.org

  2. 2
    Jacob A. Riis, How the Other Half Lives (New York: Scribner's, 1890), full text

    gutenberg.org

  3. 3
    NYC Parks — Columbus Park history: Calvert Vaux's plan, the park's opening in the summer of 1897, and Riis's verdict on it

    nycgovparks.org

Colorized Past
Colorized Past@George Reiner

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