Little Italy: 1908

I strongly believe this is a view of First Avenue between 114th and 115th Streets. If you look closely at this photo you will see an undertaker, Antonio Cancro. In City Directories through the years surrounding 1908 he runs an undertaking business at 2227 First Avenue.

In the book, Rosa Ponselle: American Diva (Mary Jane Phillips-Matz, Northeastern, 1997) the following description: "Carmela [Rosa's sister] more correctly identifies the site of their tryout appearance as a theater at First Avenue and 110th Street. It occupied the lot at 2157 First Avenue, between 111th and 112th Streets Just a few feet to the south were two huge consolidated gas tanks, a lime shed and a coal yard belonging to the standard gas and light company."

The tank-type gas holders shown here were constructed in interlocking sections which rose as they were filled with Coal Gas from the Gas and Coking plant when gas demand was low, and fell when demand was higher than supply. This way, the Coal Gas and Coking plant could be run at a constant rate, retorting coal into coal gas, coke and other byproducts.

The tanks were constructed in sections, and telescoped together as they fell. The skeleton circular framework had vertical rails within which the tank sections slid in guides on each section of tank. With the large area of the tank top, it did not take that much coal gas pressure to lift the tank's sections by gas within, interlocking sections as they rose. Some of the tank bottoms were water-filled to prevent leakage. The weight of the tank provided gas pressure.

The the danger of fire was not the greatest of the problems cause by living in close proximity to the gas tanks. Before the Second World War, New York (and many other cities) were not supplied with natural gas. They used manufactured gas, which was made by heating cheap grades of bituminous coal or bunker oil in a retort. This process produced several byproducts, including noxious, sulfurous fumes which permeated the air in the surrounding district. These tanks were located in very close proximity to several large gas manufacturing plants.

What a fire and explosive hazard - gas tanks in a residential and commercial neighborhood. I guess there were no restrictions at that time.

That would absolutely put it in the East Village, though in 1908 I think it would have been the Lower East Side.

First Avenue ends at Houston Street. Little Italy is south of that, around Mulberry and Grand Streets. This was probably another Italian neighborhood. The area around lower First Avenue is now called the East Village (as opposed to the West Village, which is really Greenwich Village). The East Village area is being gentrified with new restaurants and upscale condos. The photograph really belongs in a Godfather II scene, it is amazing.

[If we use the address number 489 as a clue, the first cross street in the photo would be East 29th. - Dave]

Those are two of the many huge natural-gas storage tanks along the East River waterfront that gave the Gashouse District its name.

Does anyone know anything about those huge tanks in the background? I am guessing that this is somewhere just above Houston St.

I'm always struck by all the awnings on these images of city streets. Remember how hot and stuffy stores could be before air conditioning?