Fred Zinnemann 1907-1997

Award-winning film director Fred Zinnemann, who directed such films as High Noon, From Here to Eternity, The Men, The Day of the Jackal, and A Man for All Seasons, among others, began his career as a photography student.  He arrived in New York from his native Austria on the day of the stock market crash in October, 1929.  After visiting Hollywood, he returned to New York in 1932, with plans to publish a book of photographs of the city.  In the depths of the Depression, the cost of producing an illustrated book proved too expensive, and Zinnemann eventually turned to filmmaking.  An early effort was The Wave, on which he worked with Paul Strand.

Very few vintage prints of Zinnemann's New York photographs survive.  Over the years, his prints and negatives were consigned to storage or lost.  Most of what remained of his personal archive was donated to the Victoria & Albert Museum in 1989.  At the time of this writing only one other print of this image has been located, at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.  Six variant views of Wall Street are known to exist.