Census records, real estate guides, and fire insurance maps draw a profile of the neighborhood in the 1930s. Situated at the southern end of the city's Yorkville District, the block was predominantly Italian, although many Irish and Poles lived on nearby East Side streets. The population grew during the decade, with most families living in rented three- or four-room apartments or in "rooming and lodging" houses built before 1900. Most buildings provided shared toilets and tubs, and nearly all residents had electricity or gas for cooking and lighting. Rents ranged from ten to fifty dollars per month. Residents either rode public transportation (a tramway ran parallel to East Sixty-first Street and the EL traveled along Second Avenue) or walked; few owned automobiles. A Roman Catholic church--identified as Our Lady of Perpetual Help on a 1934 map--adjoined a parochial school facing East Sixty-second Street. Many small businesses served the neighborhood, and a few larger concerns like warehouses and a laundry that served a citywide clientele.11
This webpage is from the Library of Congress. It includes twenty photographs taken by Walker Evans for the Farm Security Administration. The photographs portray a New York City block in the 1930s. According to the Library of Congress, the census and real estate guides to place the block within a historical context. The webpage describes not only Evans' career and photography style but the analysis of the subject, this particular New York City block, provides the reader with background such as the types of households, tenants and businesses that occupied this neighborhood during this time.
