Rockefeller Center

January 27, 1937 · Photograph

May one see it?

Not receiving at present

Harvard Art Museums

Cambridge, United States

It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.

Checked: 9 days ago
In this state since: Sep 27, 2026
Source: The museum

On the map Museum page

Particulars

Accession number: 2007.168

In the catalog

Photographs Gelatin silver print Modernism 20th century American

Sources

Harvard Art Museums
Image: Harvard Art Museums — © President and Fellows of Harvard College

Meanwhile, in the life of Berenice Abbott

The whole life

1930s
The idea behind “Changing New York”
Her project is primarily a sociological study embedded within modernist aesthetic practices, meant to show the interaction between the city’s diverse people, the places where they live, work and play, and their daily activities. Lewis Mumford’s historical writings of the early 1930s strongly influence her, and buildings of the “paleotechnic era” often look downright menacing in her photographs.
1935
The Federal Art Project hires her as project supervisor
In 1935 the Federal Art Project (FAP) hires her as project supervisor for “Changing New York”: she continues to photograph the city while assistants help in the field and in the office, leaving her all her time for producing, printing and exhibiting her photographs. By the time she resigns from the FAP in 1939 she has produced 305 photographs, deposited at the Museum of the City of New York.
1935
Moves into a loft with the critic Elizabeth McCausland
She moves into a Greenwich Village loft with the art critic Elizabeth McCausland and lives with her until McCausland’s death in 1965. McCausland is an ardent supporter, writing about Abbott in the Springfield Daily Republican, Trend and New Masses (the latter under the pseudonym Elizabeth Noble) and contributing the captions for “Changing New York”.
1937
“Changing New York” exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York
Her first exhibition in New York (other accounts place an exhibition at this museum as early as 1934) becomes her best-known project. The photographs depict the city’s physical transformation, including changes to its neighbourhoods and the replacement of low-rise buildings with skyscrapers.
19 June 1937 – 12 September 1937
Took part in: foto '37
1939
The book “Changing New York” is published
The book, with captions by Elizabeth McCausland, is well received, but differs markedly from the one Abbott and McCausland first envisioned, especially in captions and sequencing; in 1973 it will be reissued as “New York in the 30’s”. Ralph Steiner writes in PM that her work is the greatest collection of photographs of New York City ever made.