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South of Union Square
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344 2 Avenue
317 East 20th Street
317 East 20th Street

Changing New York; Twentieth Street between Second and First Avenues

Row houses and tenements on 20th Street. A Consolidated Edison gas tank and the 2nd Avenue Line "El" are visible in the distance.

IMAGE DATE1938
FromMuseum of the City of New York logoMuseum of the City of New York

20th Street east of Second Avenue was in the old "gashouse district" named for the gas houses built along the East River. Berenice Abbott's photograph shows one of the remaining Con Ed tanks between First Avenue and Avenue A. Also in the distance, the Second Avenue El, which ran on First Avenue below 23rd Street.

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