Reginald Marsh painted everything in his New York of the 1930s and 1940s: Bowery crowds, showgirls, forgotten men, Coney Island beachgoers, tugboats, panhandlers, and shoppers.
So of course he would take his sketchpad and chronicle New Yorkers using mass transit underground. In 1930 he painted “Subway, 14th Street,” showing a crowd of city residents rushing en masse to or from the train, each absorbed in his or her own world.
If only the newspaper headlines were a little easier for viewers to read!
Tags: 14th Street subway, New York in the 1930s, Reginald Marsh, subway rush hour NYC
Ephemeral New York 
April 3, 2017 at 1:44 pm |
I love your blogs.. this one is “fab”
April 3, 2017 at 2:38 pm |
Thank you! No one paints NYC like Reginald Marsh.
April 4, 2017 at 12:28 pm |
As a kid in the mid sixties and a teen in the early seventies always loved detraining at 14th street either for a transfer or for the walk over to the Academy of Music. Carried with the crowds over iron catwalks thru tunnels the roar of trains constant. Faced with choices always followed the crowd to the surface. It seemed to me then that this was the mixing bowl of the city where the vibe turned youthful and more so if you continued your journey further downtown.
April 4, 2017 at 5:45 pm |
He was one of very few modern artists who have mastered egg tempera. These paintings have have a wonderful translucence. But it’s a very difficult medium, I believe.
April 5, 2017 at 2:14 pm |
I first heard of egg tempera through Thomas Hart Benton. It seems difficult and messy.
April 5, 2017 at 2:11 pm |
Are there any artist now who do such work in the everyday city? Thanks for making me aware of Reginald Marsh.
April 6, 2017 at 3:16 pm |
love it!! never seen this one and RM is a favorite of mine
April 6, 2017 at 3:19 pm |
BTW, where is this painting?
May 21, 2018 at 4:40 am |
[…] he took a series of photos in the 1930s along 14th Street as well, capturing Depression-era New York’s grit, glamour, and many forgotten […]
May 16, 2022 at 5:36 am |
[…] performers, sailors and soldiers, forgotten men at lonely docks and Bowery dives, sideshow gawkers, subway riders, and sexily dressed men and women carousing and enjoying the playground that is 1920s and 1930s […]