The Ninth Avenue El From 23rd Street – May 31, 1930
With London Terrace Apartments About To Begin Construction
This photograph by Percy Loomis Sperr shows the Ninth Avenue El looking north from the west side of 23rd Street.
We can see the entire corner from 23rd to 24th Street has been cleared in preparation for the construction of the London Terrace apartment complex. London Terrace has 14 buildings stretching from Ninth to Tenth Avenues.
To the right, near the four sided high pressure fire hydrant is the stairway leading up to the elevated station.
On the roof of the building on the west side of 24th is an advertisement for R.R. Heywood Lithography Company at 263 Ninth Ave.
One bizarre observation. There are no fences and only a slight barrier of wood planks set on barrels to keep people off of the vacant lot.
In the old days before ambulance chasers, sorry, injury attorneys, ruined society, if you chose to walk on someone else’s property you did so at your own risk. If you got hurt, generally it was tough luck. People could file a lawsuit if they got injured, but rarely did. Most people did not sue as the monetary awards, if any, were minimal. Up until the 1980s it was common for kids to play in vacant lots in New York City.
On the other hand , life was not fair back then for workers who were hurt performing their job with marginal or no safety equipment. The courts also favored companies over workers.
If a person was maimed or killed on the job and the company was liable, the family would be lucky to collect $1,000 from a court judgment. That was about the equivalent of a year’s salary for a blue collar worker.
