In 1905, when Broadway was already the most famous thoroughfare in
New York City, a recreational photographer from Newark, New Jersey named
Charles Gilbert Hine set out to document the street’s entire length.
Taking
pictures from downtown Bowling Green and its skyscrapers to uptown
Inwood with its fields and wildflowers, Hine depicted a Broadway
animated by the presence of the past and the relentless pressures of
change.
Through his lens appear shanties, brownstones and country houses;
horse-drawn wagons and trolley cars; downtown sex workers and uptown
famers.
Hines’ photographs lingered in the collection of the New York
Historical until they were discovered by Nick Yablon, a professor of
history and American Studies at the University of Iowa.
Now they appear in Nick’s new book, From the Skyscraper to the Wildflower: C.G. Hine’s 1905 Photographic Survey of Broadway (Columbia University Press, 2026).
Combining
Hines’ photographs with his own analysis, along with maps and other
images, Nick has produced an illuminating book that depicts Broadway,
its peoples, its buildings, and the many neighborhoods that Broadway
traverses, at a distinct moment in time.
A digital companion to From the Skyscraper to the Wildflower, with a selection of Hine’s photographs, an interactive map of Broadway, and more, can be found here.
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