It’s a dark night at this moment in time on the corner of Bleecker and Carmine Streets in 1915.
But there’s warmth and light from the shop windows and the apartments above, which illuminate small groups of Italian immigrants, who had settled into this part of the Village.
Ashcan School artist and Greenwich Villager George Luks is the painter, and he often depicted immigrant crowds on city street corners.
Are we looking at the corner just across from Our Lady of Pompeii Church?
John Sloan depicts a moody Village set apart from the rest of the city in his 1922 painting “The City From Greenwich Village.”
In his notes, he had this to say about the setting, the light, and “chopped out” modern New York:
“Looking south over lower Sixth Avenue from the roof of my Washington Place studio, on a winter evening. The distant lights of the great office buildings downtown are seen in the gathering darkness. The triangular loft building on the right had contained my studio for three years before.
“Although painted from memory it seems thoroughly convincing in its handling of light and space. The spot on which the spectator stands is now an imaginary point since all the buildings as far as the turn of the elevated have been removed, and Sixth Avenue has been extended straight down to the business district.
“The picture makes a record of the beauty of the older city which is giving way to the chopped-out towers of the modern New York. Pencil sketch provided details.”
Ephemeral New York 