In this winter scene showing Lower Broadway in New York City, the former Singer Building at center towers above all. For one year, 1908-1909, it was the tallest building in the world at 612′. The former world headquarters of the Singer Sewing machine company, it was designed by architect Ernest Flagg. (1857-1947)

No longer standing, it was demolished in 1968. The building was a monument to engineering progress and a significant feature of Manhattan’s skyline during the early part of the 20th Century. Ever taller buildings followed, including the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower (1909) at 700′; The Woolworth Building (1913) at 792′; the Chrysler Building (1930) at 1046′; and Empire State Building (1931) at 1250′.

The Singer Building or Tower was further chronicled in well-known compositions by significant photographers soon after it was built. These include The Singer Building, Twilight (photogravure, 1913) by Alvin Langdon Coburn; Lower Manhattan and The City of Ambition, (both 1910) by Alfred Stieglitz; and Cables–Singer Building, Late Afternoon, (1912) by Karl Struss.

Lower Broadway  N.Y. City was taken by award-winning amateur American photographer Charles Hellmuth, (1887-1945) a member of the Pictorial Photographers of America. At the time it was taken, the New York City resident was making his living as a commercial lithographer and poster artist for the Acme Litho Company in the city. A significant addition and legacy of the Pictorialist photographic movement from the early 1920’s, a small body of  Hellmuth’s work as artist/photographer owned by the PhotoSeed Archive will appear as part of a planned post later in 2014.

Print details recto: manilla paper cover sheet taped from verso along with the number 560 in graphite underlined on verso of sheet. Print centered and corner-glued to backing board.

verso: titled in bold black ink: Lower Broadway  N.Y. City.
signed by Hellmuth in script: Photograph made & submitted by – along with ink stamp:
Chas. A. Hellmuth
338 W. 22nd St.
New York