Cornelia Street has barely changed in a century

Okay, Cornelia Street today is a little different—the Sixth Avenue El no longer rattles by and casts a dark shadow over the northern end of the street.

But otherwise, doesn’t this one-block lane, tucked between West Fourth and Bleecker Streets, still look the same as it does in this John Sloan painting from 1920?

Sloan had a studio in the Flatiron-style tower in the center, officially called the Varitype Building. He often painted Sixth Avenue and Cornelia Street—like this scene of three women drying their hair on a Cornelia Street rooftop.