Feb 17, 2004 - Sale 1996

Sale 1996 - Lot 18

Price Realized: $ 23,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 14,000 - $ 18,000
THE FIRST, AND LARGEST 19TH-CENTURY PHOTOGRAPH OF NEW YORK CITY SILVER, WILLIAM W.
Panorama of New York City in 9 parts. Mounted albumen prints, each photograph measuring 12 1/2x15 1/2 inches (31.6x39.3 cm.), the dimensions of each mount are 16x20 inches (40.5x50.7 cm.); overall length is 15 feet; the first panel with "W. W. Silver, 102 Fulton Street" in the plate. 1874
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a spectacular series of images of lower manhattan, the surrounding harbor, and outer boroughs that reveals a wealth of information about new york city. William Silver set up his mammoth-plate camera on top of the Post Office building, which once stood at the tip of City Hall Park, moving the tripod with each successive panel to form a sweeping view of New York on a bright morning.

The first photograph shows the southern tip of Manhattan island and what later was known as Verrazzano Bay, with Staten Island in the distance. In the foreground is the mansard roof and ornamental top of the Post Office, which was designed by A. B. Mullett, and razed in 1938-39. Trinity Church may also be seen. The view of photograph #2 is towards the southwest and shows the mouth of the Hudson River with an industrial New Jersey shoreline visible in the distance. The large square building in the foreground is the Astor House Hotel, which was built by John Jacob Astor in 1836, and demolished in 1913. Photograph #3 is view looking west down Park Place to the Hudson, showing the numerous metal sidewheel steam craft at their piers. Photograph #4 looks to the northwest. Dozens of commercial loft buildings--now the chic dwellings of Tribeca and Soho residents--may be seen as well as the New Jersey Palisades. Photograph #5 shows Manhattan to the north. The factory districts of the previous panel give way to residential neighborhoods, with clusters of church steeples, full foliage trees and the "ghost" of an omnibus faintly visible in the foreground. Photograph #6 to the north, northeast is one of the most informative in the panorama. In the foreground is City Hall, opened in 1812, one of the most unchanged buildings in New York. Directly behind it is the new County Court House, which still stands, and was once referred to as "Tweed Court House," since it was built under the sponsorship of "Boss" William Tweed. Behind City Hall is the Hall of Records, which had formerly been a jail. And, behind that are the elegant offices of New York's German newspaper "Staats Zeitung," the foremost foreign language paper of the time. Photograph #7 looks towards the northeast and Manhattan's industrial lower east side, where offices of the city's major newspapers were located. In the immediate foreground is the then New York Times building. Under construction, with scaffolding and a banner, is the new New York Tribune building. Photograph #8 shows the view to the east and looks directly down Beekman Street. The City of Brooklyn--as it was then called--is stretched out along the other side of the East River. In the upper left the emerging twin towers of the Brooklyn Bridge can be seen in the midst of construction. Finally, photograph #9 shows the southeast of the island. The tall building in the middle foreground was the Bennett Building. Along the shoreline are numerous sailing ships that once made South Street famous as the "street of ships." In the right distance is Governor's Island and at the far right is the round stone fort, Castle Williams, which was later an alternative destination for new immigrants.

This cataloguer quotes extensively from an article describing the panorama and detailing the prints by then curator of the Museum of the City of New York, R. Steven Hyde Miller, entitled "A Portrait of New York City in 1874." Apparently, only three known copies of this work are extant. The Museum of the City of New York is custodian of one--which was gifted by the granddaughters of Ulysses S. Grant--and the other is in the New-York Historical Society.