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November 8 - November 11, 1911 New York City Garbage Strike

Other Bain/LOC photos of the New York City 1911 garbage strike: [http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/2162967843/in/photostream/

The New York City garbage strike was put down by a massive hiring of strikebreakers, but outbursts of resistance continued until the end of November, as documented by stories in The New York Times. Cleanup efforts dragged on into December. "Strikers Plead to be Taken Back" New York Times story, November 21, 1911: query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9A02E3DC1231E2...

A search in the NY Times archives found that the wife of the late Adolph A Edlich, Bertha Edlich, died on Feb 26, 1948. A child, Adolph A. Edlich of 327 East 27th Street died at the age of 3. I can't verify if this is the same family of Adolph A. Edlich who had this pharmacy on the corner.

I'm not 100% certain, but this may be 50th Street and First Avenue in New York City. The gabled building in the distance looks a lot like 931 First Avenue a.k.a. the United Nations School a.k.a. Public School 135 a.k.a. Public School 35, originally built in 1892. This building was recently been redeveloped into the the Beekman Regent, so some of its architectural features have been removed. And just as in the photo, there's an address with an 891 only a block away from it.

November 8 - November 11, 1911 New York City Garbage Strike

Uh-uh: the date on seven of Bain's photos is November 13, 1911.

Thanks for your comments! We'll include the additional information about the strike and date next time we update the record.

"White Wings," if you don't recognize the uniforms, are street cleaners. (Wystan, I was going to ask how in the world you recognized this as Union Square, until that brick pile appeared in later photographs. Nice landmark)