House Raising

William P. Chappel

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

As Manhattan’s population expanded in the early nineteenth century, many working-class residents relocated to the city’s more rural northern wards to escape rising downtown rents. This tenth-ward scene takes place on Grand between Eldridge and Allen Streets (in today’s Lower East Side). A master builder and several journeymen, some with long pike poles, work to raise one side (called a "bent") of a timber-frame house. For years, New York had tried unsuccessfully to prohibit wood structures in favor of more fire-friendly brick or stone. At right, what are possibly the flames from a forge can be seen through the window of a blacksmith’s shop.

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