Here’s another lovely Martin Lewis etching, this one entitled “Quarter of Nine, Saturday’s Children,” from the pivotal year of 1929.
I tried to research what block this is but came up empty. That looks like an armory on the right—could it be the demolished armory that once stood at Park Avenue and 34th Street?
Check out another Martin Lewis street scene with a now-solved mystery location in Queens.
Tags: "Quarter of Nine, Martin Lewis, Martin Lewis etching, New York in 1929, New York street, old New York armories, Saturday Evening
Ephemeral New York 
December 1, 2011 at 11:09 am |
The front tower looks like one on 34th Street but the one’s nearby don’t look like it, I doubt if this was the inspiration but perhaps it was artistic license?
I remember the night I saw the armory torn down, wandered through the site kicking at old rocks and other debris till a guard told me to beat. I was sad.
December 1, 2011 at 3:05 pm |
I’m thinking artistic license. I’ve been looking through old armory photos, and it seems that only some in Brooklyn have rounded turrets like that.
December 1, 2011 at 3:14 pm |
Maybe…did you see this one?
http://library.gc.cuny.edu/34th_st/items/show/786
December 1, 2011 at 3:30 pm |
That looks like it fits! I didn’t see that it was a square turret going up behind the round one.
December 1, 2011 at 3:34 pm |
So you found it, that’s great! Mystery solved 😉
December 1, 2011 at 4:13 pm |
The 7th picture down here shows an angle similar to the one of the etching:
http://www.andrewcusack.com/2007/01/27/a-sienese-gem-lost/
December 1, 2011 at 4:16 pm |
Beautiful images, thanks Jay. Imagine if that armory still existed!
December 1, 2011 at 4:30 pm |
Years ago I had wandered in with my father into the armory and got caught up in a rejuvenation revivalist packed house meeting with the happy assembly singing, “Faith, Hope And Charity, that’s the way to live happily. How do I know? The Bible tells me so.” I’ll never will forget it, that’s what I was thinking when the security guard chased me off the wrecked site.
December 1, 2011 at 6:17 pm |
Looks like 1892 model lamp post limited to 5th avenue: http://www.nyc.gov/html/lpc/downloads/pdf/reports/lampposts.pdf
December 1, 2011 at 6:50 pm |
The Vanderbilt Hotel was built in 1913 and should be visible to left of 71st Regiment armory in 1929 but is not seen in the drawing. http://nyc-architecture.com/MID/MID026.htm
December 1, 2011 at 8:29 pm |
I made a mistake with the orientation…this drawing is actually viewing 34th street looking west – which had double lamp posts and street cars whereas park avenue had bishop’s crooks (single lamp posts). The far right possibly could be the Vanderbilt Hotel in partial view.
December 1, 2011 at 8:44 pm |
Looking East on 34th i mean. A lot of photos of this spot have the wrong orientation described in the caption but this one i think is correct: http://library.gc.cuny.edu/34th_st/items/show/786 Shows Park Avenue (boulevard) crossing 34th looking southward.
December 2, 2011 at 2:10 am |
What’s on the Armory site now?
A photographer named John Fielder found a trove of old Coloado photos, then found the spots where the photos were taken, and took contemporary photos. The before-and-afters are amazing. Does anyone know a photographer that has done this for NY?
December 2, 2011 at 2:56 pm |
dover books has a few volumes along these lines iirc. also, the daily news used to run a series called ‘new york’s changing scene,’ which paired old and new pictures, a series long discontinued, but it was fascinating.
December 5, 2011 at 4:03 pm |
About ten years back the Museum of the City of New York had an exhibit of Berenice Abbott’s famous New York photos from the 1930s. They also had a little ancillary show by a contemporary photographer who went back to many of the sites Abbott photographed to show what the areas looks like now.
December 3, 2011 at 8:34 pm |
Here’s a picture of the spectacular 72st Regiment Aemory- What a building! So I’d say that’s the subject of the print
http://www.flickr.com/photos/40045986@N00/3096827443/in/photostream
December 4, 2011 at 1:16 am |
Yes, so beautiful. It’s inspired a future Ephemeral post on demolished Armories. There was another on 14th Street.
December 3, 2011 at 8:35 pm |
Ugh, I meant 71st Regiment Armory
December 3, 2011 at 10:39 pm |
I find it interesting how short the skirts are! 1929 skirts were their shortest until the 1960s.
August 25, 2012 at 8:30 pm |
I copied some notes from the book, THE PRINTS OF MARTIN LEWIS, A CATALOGUE RAISONNE’, by Paul McCarron. This is what it said, “QUARTER OF NINE, SATURDAY’S CHILDREN, 1929 (The scene depicts women on their way to work in stores, early on Saturday morning on Thirty-fourth St. at Park Avenue—identified by the Seventy-first Regiment Armory, now demolished, at right. This was near Lewis’s studio at 145 E.Thirty-fourth Street. The same location, from different vantage points, was used for several other prints, including RAIN ON MURRAY HILL.)
So, we now know that Lewis used this location for more than one work.
I also believe that the view in the print is looking east on 34th St.
November 19, 2012 at 6:16 am |
[…] the same armory depicted in Quarter of Nine, Saturday’s Children, a Martin Lewis etching from […]
February 4, 2013 at 8:49 am |
[…] Lewis’ etchings are so rich and evocative. He tends to keep the locations vague though, as he did with this piece depicting a busy workday morning somewhere in the city. […]
January 3, 2014 at 12:40 pm |
I think that’s the reservoir, not an armory.
January 3, 2014 at 9:22 pm |
It’s an armory http://library.gc.cuny.edu/34th_st/items/show/786
February 24, 2020 at 5:47 am |
[…] These are finely detailed illustrations—mostly nocturnes—of solitary figures or crowds. People are coming and going along sidewalks and subway staircases, on their way home from a night out or heading to work in the morning. […]
January 18, 2022 at 8:36 am |
That is exactly what it is. The 71st regiment armory