Lamport Export Company ca. 1935 This impressive example of lower Broadway’s many cast-iron commercial buildings was designed in 1872 by the prestigious architect Jonathan B. Snook. The building is still leased to textile wholesalers, as it was in Abbott’s day. Although cast-iron architecture was less appreciated in the 1930s than it is today, Abbott was sensitive to the graceful rhythm of its modular structure. Using a wide-angle lens from a fire escape across Broadway, she managed to capture within a single exposure the entire three-lot-wide expanse of its delicately proportioned colonnade. The superimposition of the fire escape grid upon the columns demonstrates Abbott’s ability to transform city architecture into abstract composition.

St. Nicholas Hotel, Broadway, October 6, 1873. In January 1853, D.H. Haight's St. Nicholas hotel opened on Broadway, at Broome Street. Contemporaneous records credit the enormous white-marble structure to architect John B. Snook, with cast iron storefront attributed to Griffith Thomas. According to the New York Times, the St. Nicholas was New York's first building to cost over $1 million in construction; the hotel was soon extended north to Spring Street. The St. Nicholas was also the first hotel to offer “water closets” with hot and cold water in every room. The cost of a room ranged from a high of $5 a night to a low of $1– a time when the average monthly pay for a soldier was $11. During the Civil War, the hotel became the New York City headquarters of the Department of War. The St. Nicholas was also the site of an infamous episode of late-Civil War history: On November 25, 1864, a group of Confederate sympathizers enacted a plan to set New York City ablaze through a scheme of coordinated arson. The conspirators were to set small fires simultaneously, at prominent hotels across the city. The plot was unsuccessful; most fires were extinguished before they could spread. By the late 19th century, St. Nicholas had grown unpopular as tourists opted to stay further uptown, closer to fashionable districts. In 1884, it closed its doors for the last time and was razed — mostly. Beginning in the mid-1870s, as sections of the remaining building turned to other uses, two small parts were salvaged; they now live on as the modest facades of Nos. 521 and 523 Broadway.

In 1853, young Samuel L. Clemens wrote his mother in Missouri: "Well, I was out of work in St. Louis, and didn't fancy loafing in such a dry place, where there is no pleasure to be seen without paying well for it, and so I thought I might as well go to New York." It was the first time the future Mark Twain would visit, but it wouldn't be the last. New-York Historical's 2019 exhibition 'Mark Twain and the Holy Land' took a deep dive into a pivotal moment in Twain's career: the five-month cruise to Europe and the Holy Land that would inspire his bestselling travelogue 'The Innocents Abroad.' Like many good journeys, it started in New York. Check out some NYC sites that have a Twain connection.