City Watchman

William P. Chappel

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A watchman, armed with his stick and leather helmet, sets out on a snowy evening patrol from his Elizabeth Street sentry box. So-called leatherheads looked out for fires and criminal activity, such as break-ins and grave robberies. Before New York City established a professional police force in the 1840s, residents relied on a patchwork system of constables, marshals, and watchmen tasked with maintaining order in an increasingly unruly city. An inscription on the reverse of this image identifies the building to the right of the box as the Old Methodist Meeting House and those to the left as the homes of a cabinetmaker, a ward inspector, and a grocer.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art