I am not sure there is any other pair of monosyllabic words in the
English language that evokes as powerful a sense of place as Wall
Street, except, of course, New York itself. So writes famed
architectural critic Paul Goldberger in his introduction to one of the
most important photographic books on New York City to appear since 9/11:
David Anderson's On Wall Street. During the late 1970s and early 1980s,
a lot of glass-and-steel, boxlike buildings were going up in New York
City. David Anderson realized that the architecturally elaborate and
stylistic buildings of the early 1900s through the 1930s that defined
Wall Street would never be made again. He thus embarked on a twenty-year
project (from 1980 to 2000) to document Wall Street's classic
architecture before further changes in the area were made, including the
demolition and destructive renovation of too of its many historic
structures.
Anderson's approach to photographing Wall Street is unique. He avoids
people, vehicular traffic, and storefronts, and rarely does he present a
view of an entire building. Instead, he focuses on the details or a
certain profile in order to reveal a building's architectural form and
energy and its larger sense of place within the city's urban fabric.
Anderson's photographs of Wall Street will forever be part of a visual
record of a by-gone era that emphasized artistic craftsmanship rarely
achieved in modern buildings. Like the historic skyscrapers and civic
buildings that Anderson depicts, his photographs are equally solid,
self-assured, and beautiful. Collectively, they capture the spirit,
architectural genius, and harmonious elevated scale of this special
place in the financial capital of the world.
