Sixth Avenue before 1871

This is George Gardner Rockwood's photograph of Sixth Avenue, bound within a larger book. It gives us a glimpse into the rapidly transforming urban landscape of late 19th-century New York. As we consider this image, we must remember that photography, then, was a tool often wielded by the privileged. While Rockwood's lens captures the avenue's physical space, it also frames a particular narrative of progress and development, one that often sidelined the experiences of working-class communities. Who lived here? Who was displaced to make way for the avenue's expansion? Rockwood’s work invites us to consider whose stories are told, and whose are left out. The very act of photographing a street constructs it as a site of spectacle. We have to ask ourselves what perspectives might be missing from this carefully composed view. What can we learn from the silence of the people who are missing from this photograph?