Cleveland Museum of Art

The Street

George Bellows

Date

1917

Medium

lithograph

Culture

America

Department

Prints

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Tenement dwellers on the Lower East Side of Manhattan spent much of their time on their stoops or in the street socializing, eating, playing, or otherwise escaping their cramped living spaces. Here, the elevated train makes the crowded street feel especially claustrophobic. A woman scolds a barefoot street urchin before a curious audience in the center of the activity. In the foreground, two young women stand out in their gleaming white outfits amid the endless gray tones of the crowd. As ready-to-wear fashions became increasingly available, women of every class could go out on the town sporting the latest styles. The Third Avenue Elevated train seen in this print, constructed in 1878, covered the length of the Bowery in New York until its closure starting in 1950.

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