During the 1910s, Joseph P. Day was a real-estate developer on the rise. He'd earned a formidable reputation by the age of 21 after auctioning off large swaths of land in Brooklyn and Queens. Day set his eyes on the Bronx as the next up-and-coming portion of the city. He commissioned photographer William D. Hassler to capture areas of undeveloped land—in effect creating a survey of a quickly growing city. Over two days in 1914, Day sold over four hundred lots of undeveloped land.

For 50 years, Joseph P. Day sold what amounted to one-third of the Bronx and one-third of Queens, in addition to portions of Brooklyn, Westchester County, and North New Jersey. He was a driving force in the real estate market. After auctioning off the land on Manhattan Beach, Day looked to the Bronx for new development. This circus tent was set up for one of his Bronx auctions.

The auction's purpose was for the sale of the Pearsall Estate in the present-day Morris Park neighborhood. Before the sale, it had been divided into lots and given street names. On May 31 and June 1, 1914, Day sold 420 lots of undeveloped land in this area. He didn't stop there: in 1921, Day sold 1,500 homes in the Morris Park area in just 12 hours.