Coenties Slip
Shelter on the Waterfront (1938). We see a group of men in front of the ramshackle cabin that was the home of the watchman for Pier 5 in the East River; in the background is the Lower Manhattan skyline. Pier 5, and the other piers in the Coenties Slip area, were dismantled after freight shipping moved to deeper ports on the Hudson and New Jersey. Today, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Plaza and 55 Water Street sit on part of what was Coenties Slip.
The two tallest buildings in Abbott’s photograph are the Farmers Trust Building, on the left, and 60 Wall Street (now 70 Pine Street), which is dead center. The Farmers Trust Building, now City Bank-Farmers Trust Company Building, can be seen elsewhere in this series (see Stone and William Streets, in Canyons). As for 70 Pine Street, it can still be seen if you know where to look (it’s the building with the aquamarine pyramidal roof).