Walker Evans, time, and angle parking

As I noted here several years ago, Walker Evans liked angle parking. Here's Greensboro, Alabama:

Greensboro, county seat of Hale County, Alabama. 1935 or 1936. Walker Evans for the Farm Security Administration.

Google street view lets us check out what these places look like now. They still have angle parking -- Yay! But it looks like C.A. Johnson and Son is gone (the corner lot is now empty -- here's a link to the street view image). The rooflines of the third and fourth buildings on the left confirm that this is the same block. Walker Evans had a better angle though -- he must have shot from second floor or the roof of one of the buildings on the right side of this block. And the cars were way cooler.

Greensboro, Alabama. Google Street View, January 2017.

Iron and Steel, Birmingham, Alabama

Tenn. Coal Iron & R.R. Co.'s furnaces at Ensley, Birmingham, Ala., 1909

From the panoramic photograph collection at the Library of Congress.

Steelmill and workers' houses. Birmingham, Alabama.

Walker Evans took this iconic photograph of the TCI steel mills in March of 1936 for the Farm Security Administration (FSI).

1. Jack E. Boucher, Photographer, March 1974. GENERAL VIEW FROM THE EAST SHOWING THE 'PIG MACHINE', THE #1 CASTING SHED AND THE #1 FURNACE IN THE FOREGROUND.
HAER ALA,37-BIRM,4-1
Jack Boucher took this photograph of the Sloss Steelworks in 1974 for HABS/HAER.

121. Close up view of 1929 Allis-Chalmers steam turbine with engine housing removed.
HAER ALA,37-BIRM,4-121

Jack Boucher took this photograph in 1974 for HABS/HAER.

Walker Evans in Pittsburgh

This image was taken by Walker Evans in December, 1935 in Pittsburgh for the Farm Security Administration.

Pittsburgh Houses

Bethlehem Steel

Bethlehem Steel Works.
This image, which is part of the panoramic collection of the Library of Congress, was taken from the north bank of the Lehigh River by William Herman Rau in 1896.

Bethlehem graveyard and steel mill. Pennsylvania.
Walker Evans took this photograph for the Farm Security Administration from a cemetery in South Bethlehem looking north toward the works. (1935, FSI collection of Library of Congress)

Update (9/11/2019): this is what the view likes today (thanks to Google street view):

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (via Google street view)

Bethlehem Steel Corporation, South Bethlehem Works, Along Lehigh River, North of Fourth Street, West of Minsi Trail Bridge, Bethlehem, Northampton County, PA
Jet Lowe took this picture in 1972  1979 for the HABS/HAER project, looking downstream from the north side of the Lehigh River.

Bethlehem Steel is now bankrupt, and stopped operating the Bethlehem works in 1995. Most of the site is now being developed as a casino by the Sands Corporation of Las Vegas.

Walker Evans Liked Angle Parking

And so do I. Walker Evans took this wonderful photograph of Main Street in Saratoga Springs, New York that featured a lineup of cars angle-parked on a street shiny with rain.

Here's a link to the image at Yale: Main Street, Saratoga Springs. Evans took this photograph in 1931.

Later, when he worked for the Farm Security Administration, he took similar images in other places:


Hale County, Alabama
County seat of Hale County, Alabama. 1935 or 1936. Walker Evans for the FSA.


Macon, Georgia
Main Street, Macon Georgia, March 1936. Walker Evans for the FSA.

Walker Evans on Fourth Street

Street view, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

I've been a Walker Evans fan for a long time, and there are lots of his images that I like. This one was taken in November, 1935, in South Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Evans worked for the Farm Security Administration for a couple of years (along with many other photographers), taking pictures of industrial towns and agricultural areas around the United States. I spent a couple of years in graduate school in Bethlehem in the mid-1980s and, except for the cars, Bethlehem looked pretty much the same. The steel mill is gone now, and I have not been back to Bethlehem in many years, so this scene may be different now.

Update (9/11/2019): This is Fourth Street now (via Google street view):

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania