A Master's Eye: Work of Brilliant City Photographer Discovered in Archives

Photo of Park Row by Eugene de Salignac, the official photographer for New York City’s Department of Bridges/­Plant and Structures from 1906 to 1934.

Chances are you’ve never heard of a photographer named Eugene de Salignac.Though his photographs may be favorably compared with the work of such all-time greats as Eugene Atget and Berenice Abbott, until quite recently he was unrecognized and totally unheralded. From 1906 until 1934 de Salignac served as the official photographer of New York City’s Department of Bridges/­Plant and Structures, chronicling the construction of the bridges, subways and other mammoth projects that helped make the city the colossus we know today.

In one amazing photograph after another, he has portrayed the complex process of constructing today’s urban landscape and shown the people who made it happen.

That we know as much about him as we do is the result of an impressive bit of sleuthing by Michael Lorenzini, an archivist and photographer in the city’s Municipal Archives.

Back in 1999, Lorenzini was engaged in searching the city’s collections for a book about city workers, and in so doing he began going through the photographic files of the Department of Bridg­es; Plant and Structures—some 20,000 pictures, all 8x10-inch glass negatives stored in the basement of the Municipal Archives on Chambers Street, though luckily copied onto microfilm.

Soon Lorenzini realized that most of these old photographs were astonishingly good—technically flawless, imaginatively conceived and ofter displaying humor, too, that was pure delight.

Although Lorenzini had first as­sumed that many different photographers wereinvolved he began wondering whether more than one person had produced them. And when he consulted log books in which the photos were dated and described (but without the photographer’s name attached), he found that the handwriting was the same, starting in 1906 and lasting for 28 years. So it had to  be one person.

But who was he?

Departmental records listed his name, Eugene de Salignac, but nothing else. Intrigued, Lorenzini began scouring other public records and found that his quarry was born in Boston in 1861 and died in New Jersey in 1943 at the age of 82. He had briefly been married and had descendents—a granddaughter, great-granddaughter, and a few great great grandchildren. They were contacted, and the granddaughter remembered him as a jovial fellow who smoked cigars and hardly ever talked about his work; she had imagined him as a retired stockbroker. He lived alone, probably in lodging houses or single room occupancy hotels.

De Salignac’s father was a French army officer who came to the U.S. and helped train Union officers during the Civil War. Eugene was actually descended from French nobility.

The 12th-century De Salignac family castle still stands in the Dordogne. It is not known what education Eugene received or how he became so skilled. But we do know that it was hard work. Many of his pictures were taken from the tops of bridge towers, to which he had to climb, lugging an 8x10 view camera plus a wooden tripod plus many glass plates, something he did into his seventies.

Three big construction projects that occupied much of his time were the Manhattan Bridge, the Queensborough Bridge and the Municipal Building, but he also photographed subways, buses and the waterfront. By the end of his career, the Depression had hit. The photos from these last years have a quiet poignancy in sharp contrast to the feel of bustling industry in his earlier images.

One photo depicts rows of white cots stretching into the distance at the municipal lodging house, waiting for occupants. Another image is of an old woman begging in front of an abandoned luncheonette, advertising “Fruits of all kinds.”

In picture after picture, De Salignac brings something extra to the scene. Note that in his wonderful photograph of workers on the Brooklyn Bridge cables he has several of the workers sitting or dangling their legs. It makes a good picture great.