The photograph titled “Wall Street” was taken by the artist Paul Strand in the year 1915. It is a black-and-white image depicting a scene on Wall Street, a notable financial district in New York City.
In the photograph, several figures are captured in a moment of daily life, with their shadows casting long lines on the ground behind them. The subjects are walking alongside a large, imposing building with tall, dark, and evenly spaced windows which dominate the right side of the composition. The strong geometric shapes of the building’s architecture create a stark contrast between the light and shadow. The light illuminates half of the sidewalk where the people are walking, underscoring the interplay between light and architecture that was a hallmark of early 20th-century photography. This artful capture of urban life conveys a sense of the rhythm and the hustle of the concentrated financial activity in that era.