A spatial interface to twenty essays on the objects and themes of the exhibit as well as the objects and landmarks
More informationThe important landmarks that stood at this important Broadway intersection over time and by site
More informationA look at the technical processes along with the men and women who made all these cultural commodities in New York
More informationHannah Wirta Kinney
Claire McRee
Kelsey Brow
Andrew Gardner
Kirstin Purtich
Kirstin Purtich
Claire McRee
Laura Kelly-Bowditch
Kelsey Brow
Virginia Fister
Martina D’Amato
Zahava Friedman-Stadler
Virginia Spofford
Virginia Spofford
Martina D'Amato
Virginia Fister
Andrew Gardner
American, artist unknown
331 Pearl Street [with Harpers Building, designed by James Bogardus with John B. Corlies, 1854]
ca. 1870
Albumen print
4 1/4 × 6 ½ in. (10.8 × 16.5 cm)
Museum of the City of New York, X2010.11.2987
The tensile strength of cast iron ushered in a new style of building in New York, making possible numerous windows and narrow supporting elements. The façade became virtually permeable, with big, inviting display windows that seemed to dissolve the boundary between street and shop. In 1858 architect and inventor James Bogardus, whose name has become synonymous with cast-iron architecture, wrote that he wanted to emulate the “rich architectural designs of antiquity in modern times, by the aid of cast iron.” His best-known structure, the Harper & Brothers building at Franklin Square on Pearl Street, with its Italianate columns and arches, gives the impression of modernity while evoking the legitimacy of the past.
— Kelsey Brow