Visualizing 19th-Century New York Digital Publication

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American, artist unknown

Chatham Square

1853–55

Daguerreotype

3 1/2 × 4 3/4 in. (8.9 × 12.2 cm)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gilman Collection, Gift of The Howard Gilman Foundation, 2005, 2005.100.173

This daguerreotype captures downtown’s Chatham Square, a busy scene marked by the commercial signage at the corner of Chatham and Pearl Streets. Known for low-priced shopping and entertainment, Chatham’s establishments contrasted with Broadway’s elite attractions. This photographer likely worked from the second story of one of the area’s several competitive daguerreotype studio-factories. Although the distant blur of traffic, pedestrians, and omnibuses may indicate the work of an amateur daguerreotypist, this view is historically significant as one of a few surviving images of New York street life before the Civil War.

— Zahava Friedman-Stadler