[Two historic photo albums whose images capture the tenements, businesses, and seven blocks of the neighborhoods razed in 1950 to make way for the Governor Alfred E. Smith Houses, New York Public Housing Authority Project within the Two Bridges Neighborhood. These 205 linen-backed photographs provide a nearly Edward Ruscha-style block-by-block visual panorama of the largely Southern European immigrant neighborhood, filled with Jewish-, Greek-, Italian-, & Spanish-American immigrant businesses.]

[New York: n.p., Gov. Alfred E. Smith Houses, A. Mengelkoch, Off. Rep. Sup. Ct. N.Y. Co., 1946-1947]. Two vols. Oblong 4to. 99; 106 leaves of linen-backed silver gelatin photographs, mounted on white linen hinges, sized 10.25 x 8 in., w/ additional 11 leaves of colour map reproductions inserted into archival mylar sleeves acting as “city block” dividers, all photographs w/ typed pencil address identification on hinge stub at gutter margin, many of the images have negative numbers in pencil MS on verso, many w/ additional identifications, or location corrections on more recent mounted white typed labels on versos, some w/ typed captions, many of the images w/ “Gov. Alfred E. Smith Houses” rubber stamp on versos (occasional edgewear, fraying to linen, some stub holes reinforced, occasional soiling, couple images which appear to have originally been placed at front & back below the original post-binder covers (now perished) have some minor dampstaining, further fraying to lowerfore-edges, minor soiling & creasing), still a remarkable pair of volumes. Recent post-binder, nickel-plated screw-posts at gutter margins, minor curving to image block, still VG set. These extraordinary photographs preserve on linen-backed silver gelatin the street level exteriors and interiors of the Lower Eastside Two Bridges Neighborhood bordered by Catharine, South, Roosevelt & Madison at the time -- with Roosevelt, now “Avenue of the Finest” & “Robert F. Wagner Sr. Place,” and before FDR Drive and East River Greenway bordered along South Street. The seven block area was composed of closely-packed tenement housing for 1000’s of immigrant families pouring into Manhattan. The neighborhood had remained distressed and fallen further into disrepair through the Great Depression and the War years, as other New York Public Housing projects had been proposed and completed following Gov. Alfred Smith’s progressive housing reform efforts. The majority of buildings and businesses depicted in G.W. Bromley & Co.’s “Land Book of the Borough of Manhattan, City of New York” from 1930, still existed right after World War II, and each of these albums is divided into block-by-block sections with the requisite photos arranged counter-clockwise allowing the viewer, or researcher, to “walk” with their eyes through the streets of 1946-1947 Lower Eastside. These previously unknown images, visually chronicle these immigrant neighborhood tenements and businesses, which were integral to the “rag and scrap paper” trade in New York, as well as the area’s often extreme poverty and neglect. Unlike most historical period dramas, or even film noir cinema, the Two Bridges cobblestone & brick paved streets were strewn with litter, debris, broken wooden barrels, burn barrels and abandoned cars in empty weed-infested lots, dilapidated awnings, frequent “For Sale” signs, with drying newly washed laundry hung from every vantage point. However, and often against the backdrop of the looming Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges, or even the Empire State Building towering above the city, these street-view photos depict the lost community’s diners, billboards, used car lots, printers, bookstores, groceries (such as the Chinese-American Tai Wahs Grocery at 36 Oliver St.), barber shops, fish markets, shoe stores, butcher shops, bakeries, junk shops, and more. A couple of the images portray a used car lot with a very used 1932 Packard limousine parked directly in front of a War-surplus half-track truck, with a variety of other very used 1920’s - late 1930’s automobiles tucked against a Diner, and Kellogg’s corn flakes billboard above. Waste paper & rag companies pictured include the Caccione Bros. & Co., New York Burlap Bag Co., Shea Bros. & Co. Paper Stock Co., the Rivsec Waste Paper Co., the Hain Paper Stock Co., Providence Waste Paper Co., and many others, often showing loading docks and trucks burdened with bundles of paper and rag to feed New York City’s needs. Some of the cafes shown include those for Spanish ex-patriots who opposed Franco before and after the Spanish Civil War and World War II, including El Chorrito and La Terraza. Many of the tenements and mixed-use buildings still sport their Coca-Cola, 7-up & Pepsi-Cola signage and billboards, and the brick-sided buildings often feature plastered-on broadsides announcing political campaigns, or Madison Square Garden fights. These photos identify over 162 of the 297 buildings & parcels, condemned and purchased by eminent domain for the later razing and then construction of the Gov. Alfred E. Smith Housing complex. The unidentified commercial photographers captured not only the exteriors of the properties, but also over 25 interior shots as well, including bars with Wurlitzer juke boxes in the background, poker tables, and crates of liquor bottles stored against the walls; beer signs for Ruppert Beer; barbers plying their trade with cigarettes dangling from their mouths; lunch counter diners with patrons & piles of used dishes; a tailing shop with tailor diligently sewing amidst piles of suits, and hanging suit jackets above; as well as the occasional resident perched on their stoop smoking a pipe, ornamental iron gates blocking off private alleyways, and much more. Upon passage of the National Housing Act in 1949, and several other pieces of Federal and State legislation following World War II to meet the desperate housing shortages, the Governor Alfred E. Smith Housings public housing development was launched. It was the first major post-War public housing development, and featured twelve 17-story buildings covering the 22 acres of razed blocks, 1931 apartments able to house nearly 6000 people. The development was originally designed with wide walkways, benches, trees, green spaces, playgrounds for children, spaces to be used for fairs, music festivals, and even offered childcare and job training classes. Dating was determined through identified dates on interior calendars as well as automobile license plates. Although these photos have the same sort of intent as images shot earlier from 1936-1937 for the New York Housing Authority, Slum Clearance Program, under Social Conditions, we were unable to locate any similar collection of post-War photographs in Worldcat, or other holdings. Alice Mengelkoch (1903-1992) was a Minnesota native, and champion Short Hand Reporter, who as early as 1926 had won the Short Hand Reporter World Championship in London, and later became a freelancer. She worked off and on for her brother Alfred Mengelkoch who founded and then oversaw the expansion of his large shipping and highway building firm based in Minnesota, with branches in New York, Chicago, and other cities until after World War II. Alice also contracted with the Superior Court of New York from before 1940 until the end of the 1940’s. See; Sarika Bansal, Smith Houses: A Legacy of Activism, Typecast: Towers in the Park, Urban Omnibus, Feb. 5, 1024; Ben Alder & Alan Chin, Where No One Thought Gentrification Would Go, Next City, Sept. 3, 2013; C.J. Hughes, Living in Two Bridges; Once Quiet, Now at the Edge of Change, New York Times, Dec. 6, 2017.