Berenice Abbott

Berenice Abbott / Photographs (New York, 1970), p. 120

Hank O'Neal, Berenice Abbott: American Photographer (New York, 1982), frontispiece

Berenice Abbott Photographer: A Modern Vision (The New York Public Library, 1989), pl. 9

Berenice Abbott (Göttingen, 2008), vol. 2, cover, frontispiece, and p. 35

Quentin Bajac et al., eds., Photography at MoMA, 1920-1960 (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2016), pl. 180

Berenice Abbott’s return to New York City in 1929 after working as a studio assistant for Eugène Atget signaled an important turning point in her career. After living in Paris for two years, she found herself looking at New York with fresh eyes. In 1929, Abbott began working on Changing New York, a project that chronicled the changing face of the city, in many ways similar to how Atget had photographed old-world Paris. Her personal approach, however, differed from that of her mentor. Abbott’s objective was twofold: to photograph the elevated train tracks, brownstones, parks, and family businesses dotting each neighborhood from the sidewalk, and to climb the newly-built skyscrapers in order to show what the city looked like from above. It is from the 102-floor Empire State Building that New York at Night was taken on 20 December 1934. New York at Night shows a city at a turning point in which man-made structures would forever dwarf its inhabitants.