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The Destruction of Lower Manhattan
“I came to see the buildings as fossils of a time past. These buildings were used during the Civil War. The men were all dead, but the buildings were still here, left behind as the city grew around them....The passing of buildings was for me a great event. It didn’t matter so much whether they were of architectural importance. What mattered to me was that they were about to be destroyed. Whole blocks would disappear. An entire neighborhood. Its few last loft occupying tenants were being evicted, and no place like it would ever be built again. The streets involved were among the oldest in New York and when sections of some were closed by the barriers of the demolition men, it meant they would never be opened again.”
—Danny Lyon
In late 1966, Danny Lyon returned to New York City, having just finished The Bikeriders . He was twenty-five. Living in a loft on the corner of Beekman and William Streets in Downtown Manhattan, Lyon saw that half the buildings on Beekman Street were boarded up, about to be demolished. That year an incredible sixty acres of mostly nineteenth-century buildings were slated for demolition, all below Canal Street. The seven-acre site where the Twin Towers would eventually stand was being cleared, a new ramp added to the Brooklyn Bridge, Pace University expanded, and the Washington Market was being moved to the Bronx. Whole sections of Lower Manhattan were being turned into rubble.
Lyon thought of the title The Destruction of Lower Manhattan first, and then made a record of each building before it was demolished. The book was released by Macmillan Publishers in 1969, and remaindered a few years later; the copies sold for one dollar each. It has been a collector’s item ever since.
Thirty-eight years after these photographs were made, many of them are the only record that survives of entire blocks that once lined Fulton Street, and West Street along the Hudson. Because of the disaster that would strike the city a generation later, New Yorkers have taken on a renewed and fervent interest in the architecture of their city. This work is a major contribution to that new world. For Lyon, these buildings in their last days standing were the embodiment of a beauty and pathos that people walking by in the street seldom noticed at the time. Those feelings were preserved in the photographs that today survive exactly as the young author intended, as a memory and a record of what was.
—Danny Lyon
In late 1966, Danny Lyon returned to New York City, having just finished The Bikeriders . He was twenty-five. Living in a loft on the corner of Beekman and William Streets in Downtown Manhattan, Lyon saw that half the buildings on Beekman Street were boarded up, about to be demolished. That year an incredible sixty acres of mostly nineteenth-century buildings were slated for demolition, all below Canal Street. The seven-acre site where the Twin Towers would eventually stand was being cleared, a new ramp added to the Brooklyn Bridge, Pace University expanded, and the Washington Market was being moved to the Bronx. Whole sections of Lower Manhattan were being turned into rubble.
Lyon thought of the title The Destruction of Lower Manhattan first, and then made a record of each building before it was demolished. The book was released by Macmillan Publishers in 1969, and remaindered a few years later; the copies sold for one dollar each. It has been a collector’s item ever since.
Thirty-eight years after these photographs were made, many of them are the only record that survives of entire blocks that once lined Fulton Street, and West Street along the Hudson. Because of the disaster that would strike the city a generation later, New Yorkers have taken on a renewed and fervent interest in the architecture of their city. This work is a major contribution to that new world. For Lyon, these buildings in their last days standing were the embodiment of a beauty and pathos that people walking by in the street seldom noticed at the time. Those feelings were preserved in the photographs that today survive exactly as the young author intended, as a memory and a record of what was.
- GenresPhotographyArtNonfiction
160 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
September 22, 2016
Lyon took photographs of nineteenth century buildings in lower Manhattan that were being torn down to make way for new buildings, including the World Trade Center. He photographed the exteriors and interiors, the men doing the work, some residents of the neighborhoods and the buildings in various stages of destruction. The photos are fascinating and paint a poignant picture of a formerly vibrant area being swept away to make way for the future. The intricate designs of the buildings are beautiful, even as they deteriorated due to neglect. There are photos and other possessions left behind by the former occupants of the buildings, and artwork on the walls. The photos form a commentary on the nature of man, striving to move forward, but also blind to the beauty around him, and content to destroy it rather than preserve it. A very interesting collection.
July 31, 2021
Devastating black and white photographic account of the destruction of lower Manhattan, some of which dated from the Civil War, underscoring yet again the need for architectural preservation (put the World Trade Center in god damned New Jersey ;) Some of the buildings reminded me of New Orleans. So sad.
January 26, 2019
Don’t let old heads tell you about “the real New York” when they’d never been to lower Manhattan before 1998. This book is an incredible document.
July 30, 2021
Mostly just photos, but the photos have the same eerie beauty as Richard Nickel's.
January 28, 2017
An enduring collection of how it was.
July 4, 2021
An unprecedented documentation of streets that no longer exist and all the vanished buildings in them.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews