Anatomy of a Photo

Welcome back to Anatomy of a Photo, where we look at a photograph in close-up. 

Here is the photograph, made around 1938 by Percy Loomis Sperr, a staff photographer for the New York Public Library who specialized in pictures showing buildings about to be razed. The photo was made at 36th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenues and looks north.

At upper right are the smokestacks from the Waterside Station of the New York Edison Company, against a hazy backdrop of the Queensboro Bridge.    

The trio of buildings ‒ Nos. 5, 25, and 45 ‒ on what was then called Prospect Place.   

The Woodstock.

The most prominent building in the photograph is St. Gabriel's School, pictured above on 36th Street. Along with its nearby namesake church, it would soon be demolished to make way for the Queens-Midtown tunnel entrance, a very sore subject among locals. 

Tenements south of Tudor City.

For more about Percy Loomis Sperr, see here.