The latest installment in the innovative Picture Windows project at ICP is an extraordinary panorama of a single New York City block taken by American photographer Todd Webb (1905–2000) in 1948. The panorama was originally comprised of eight 8x10-inch contacts prints montaged together to form an image nearly seven feet long. The original print is in the ICP collection, and is enlarged and presented here through the courtesy of the Todd Webb Estate.
The enlarged panorama, 93 feet long by 11 1/2 feet high, completely fills the thirteen windows of ICP along West 43rd Street. In great detail, it shows the many small shops that existed in 1948 along the west side of Sixth Avenue between West 43rd and 44th Streets. Today, this block is home to the museum of the International Center of Photography. Many of the storefronts feature bars and record shops, but on the far left is the Hanover House hotel where, in 1940, songwriter Woody Guthrie composed his well-known ballad, "This Land Is Your Land."
