Lonely

From 1930, a postcard^[1] titled “View from the Woolworth Tower looking West, New York City”:

It’s a little strange that the building named is not visible and the single building that is visible and might be of interest is not named. That’s the New York Telephone company headquarters, still used by the corporate descendant Verizon. It was never among the tallest buildings, having been built when there were already skyscrapers far taller than its 500 foot height, but, as seen here, its isolation made it seem very tall. Nothing in Hoboken and Jersey City across the Hudson or along the Hudson shore in Manhattan was even close to that size.

Note also that the piers are still working: there are passenger ships tied up at the pier just to the left of New York Telephone, and a couple off to the right, but there are also a lot of barges visible, in what is not considered now to be an industrial area. The piers are long gone: the same view today, in addition to a lot of other tall buildings on both side of the river, would be of Battery Park City where the piers were.

1. The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. “View from the Woolworth Tower looking West, New York City” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1930 – 1939. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/bc78e940-c55b-012f-23e9-58d385a7bc34↩︎