Leave it to Everett Shinn, social realist Ashcan artist, to paint an eviction scene that gives viewers much more than just a portrait of a family thrown out of their tenement and onto the street.
In “Eviction (Lower East Side),” we see piles of rickety belongings, men carrying a trunk and what looks like a folded mattress down the building’s stairs. A crowd of onlookers—former neighbors?—watches the eviction, as does a cop, who appears to be standing guard, perhaps in case the crowd rushes to grab the family’s things.
It’s a ghastly scene of anonymous New Yorkers, one that’s part of the Smithsonian and can be seen via magnification here.
Tags: Everett Shinn Eviction Lower East Side, Everett Shinn NYC paintings, Everett Shinn Social Realist, Eviction in New York City, Getting Evicted Thrown Out on Street in NYC, New York City tenement
Ephemeral New York 
January 25, 2021 at 6:05 am |
how horrible and heartbreaking
January 25, 2021 at 9:55 am |
We visited the Tenement Museum when it first opened and took one of the tours.
The guide asked us to imagine the poor family of three that had lived there.
I saw a very nice, spacious apartment. Better than some of the ones I had lived in over the years.
Better than some modern tiny condos.
The only drawback was a shared bathroom in the hall.
I said I’d move in the next day.
Of course, they do point out that this building was considered quite nice at the time.
There was a character on Madmen that lived in a tenement style apt as well as the one in Godfather 2.
January 25, 2021 at 11:19 am |
It looks like not only a ghastly scene but a ghostly scene.
January 26, 2021 at 12:31 am |
indeed
January 25, 2021 at 1:09 pm |
A very Sad time in the History of Poverty in our Country.