The Third Avenue Railroad Depot

William H. Schenck

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Schenck painted this precise representation of the Third Avenue Railroad Company’s new depot while serving as the company’s superintendent (1856–64). Completed in 1857 (and destroyed just four years later by fire), the handsome brick edifice was located on Third Avenue between 65th and 66th Streets in New York City. In addition to highlighting the contemporary popularity of the horse-drawn streetcar, Schenck also included a hot-air balloon in the sky, identified in tiny letters as the Atlantic. The balloon’s owners, John Wise and John LaMountain, hoped to fly it across the Atlantic Ocean to initiate an entirely new form of transportation, but they never succeeded.

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