A spatial interface to twenty essays on the objects and themes of the exhibit as well as the objects and landmarks
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The important landmarks that stood at this important Broadway intersection over time and by site
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A look at the technical processes along with the men and women who made all these cultural commodities in New York
More informationVictor Prevost
Jeremiah Gurney’s Daguerrean Gallery at Broadway and Leonard Street
1854
Modern gelatin silver print from waxed-paper negative
12 1/2 × 10 in. (31.75 × 25.4 cm)
The New-York Historical Society, PR56.21.1854.1
French immigrant artist Victor Prevost documented the rapidly changing built environment of New York using Gustave le Gray’s method of waxed-paper negative (calotype) photography. Among Prevost’s many views of the new business façades on Broadway were the daguerrean studios of his more commercially successful friends and colleagues, such as this one belonging to Jeremiah Gurney. Although Prevost’s photographs rarely featured people or traffic, the partially-visible carriage in front of the gallery suggests the bustling street life of Broadway.
— Virginia Fister
