Marjory Collins was a photojournalist who lived and studied in Greenwich Village, a “rebel looking for a cause” as she reportedly described herself.
In 1941 she joined the U.S. Office of War Information. Along with a team of other documentary photographers, she created visual narratives of wartime life in America.
“The more than 3,000 images she took in 1942-43 are preserved in the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection at the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division,” according to a biography via the photography site 20×200.com.
Could this be one of those 3,000 images? It’s a quiet composition of New York City dominated by the geometry of the 18th Street station of the Third Avenue Elevated—a mix of hard angles, strong lines, and the criss-cross shape of iron rails on the tracks and the fire escapes across the street.
The skyscrapers dominating the New York skyline at this time reached to the heavens. But in working-class east side enclaves like this one, the steel contours of the streets only reached the second and third floors.
[Photo of Collins: Wikipedia]