[Centre Street between Chambers Street and Reade Street, Manhattan, NY]
Chambers Street and Centre Street, Manhattan, NY. Survey of the street, taken in preparation for construction of the IRT East Side line. Northward view from Center Street toward Reade Street, showing trolleys, horse-drawn carriages, and male pedestrians.
New York Transit MuseumNorthward view along Centre Street from Chambers Street, August 25, 1903.
This survey photograph was taken in preparation for the construction of the original IRT East Side line. The building at left, behind the wooden barrier, is the Surrogate's Courthouse (also known as the Hall of Records). Began in 1899, the grand Beaux-Arts structure was under construction at the time of this photograph; it would not be completed until 1907, three years after the IRT subway had opened below.
Other than that structure, literally nothing else pictured remains. The massive Municipal Building would rise across the street from the Surrogate's Courthouse in 1914, and the area north of Reade is now Foley Square, which is lined with courthouses and civic buildings constructed in the decades after 1915.
Urban Archive