Union Square 2
I chose to do Hassam’s “Union Square 2” as my recreation picture but unfortunately I found many obstacles in trying to take the picture. Obviously Hassam’s picture was taken sometime in the fall as much of the foliage has fallen or is pigmented yellow, on the other hand in part due to global warming, the trees in Union Square today are still in full bloom. Additionally it seems that Hassam was atop a building when he painted this picture owing to the fact that all on sees of the park is the upper left hand side (and he couldn’t have been suspended in the middle of the park while he painted this). I was able to get as high as the 6th floor in the Filenes department store in order to take this picture but I have a feeling that he was on the very top of the building as seen by the angle of the ground in relation to the road. Additionally the dense foliage made it hard for me to see the intersecting roads so I had to use Google Maps to verify that Broadway turns on to 16th street t the angle displayed in Hassam’s painting. As for the positioning of the picture, I used the tall buildings in the background as a point of reference since they were there in the Hassam painting as well. Overall, from looking at everyone else’s comparisons I feel that New York was a much more interesting place at the turn of the century. Although that may have been because Hassam was a good artist.
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Cultural Map
"The Original Topography of Manhattan Island from the Battery to 155th Street" From Report on the Social Statistics of Cities, Compiled by George E. Waring, Jr., United States. Census Office, Part I, 1886. (Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection, University of Texas-Austin)
