From the Skyscraper to the Wildflower

C. G. Hine's 1905 Photographic Survey of Broadway
Erscheinungsjahr 2026
ISBN: 978-0-231-20353-1
Verlag: Columbia University Press

Buch, Englisch, 320 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 178 mm x 254 mm

Throughout 1905, an amateur photographer dedicated himself to capturing Broadway, from the bottom of Manhattan to the top. In sun, rain, and snow, at dawn and late at night, C. G. Hine depicted buildings that were threatened by rapid development: outmoded stores, hotels, and theaters, as well as workshops and shanties. His survey also foregrounded the street’s other holdouts against change, such as sex workers, pushcart vendors, horses, and the trees and wildflowers of upper Manhattan. Hine ultimately assembled more than three hundred photographs, along with numerous newspaper clippings and a typed essay, into a three-volume album, titled “From the Sky Scraper to the Wild Flower.”

Presenting striking images from Hine’s album, this book offers a rare glimpse into the transformation of New York’s built environment at the turn of the twentieth century. Nick Yablon explores Hine’s connections to—and divergences from—movements and trends of the time, such as historic preservation, Pictorialist photography, botany, and bicycling. He curates a selection of Hine’s photographs and investigates how they reveal deeper conflicts and tensions about urban development. From the Skyscraper to the Wildflower guides readers up Broadway block by block, casting light on New York’s changing landscape, where signs of the modern clashed with vestiges of earlier eras.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Yablon, Nick

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Amerikanische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Kunst Kunst, allgemein Einzelne Künstler: Biographien, Monografien
• Technische Wissenschaften Bauingenieurwesen Gebäudesanierung, Instandhaltung
• Geisteswissenschaften Architektur Architektur: Restaurierung, Instandhaltung
• Geisteswissenschaften Kunst Fotografie Besondere Themen und Arten der Fotografie

Über Autor(innen)

Nick Yablon is professor of history and American studies at the University of Iowa. He is the author of Untimely Ruins: An Archaeology of American Urban Modernity, 1819–1919 (2009) and Remembrance of Things Present: The Invention of the Time Capsule (2019).