View of the Tunnel of the Harlem Railroad

Nicolino Calyo

ca.1837 · Gouache on off-white wove paper · The American Wing

Calyo’s decided taste for fires and explosions is evidenced not only by his images of the Great Fire in New York (1835), but by numerous gouaches he made of Mount Vesuvius erupting above his native Naples. In this view documenting the progress of urbanization into northern Manhattan, he depicts an explosion that has just occurred in the ravine below the Prospect Hotel, which sat on the hill above the entrance to the Yorkville railroad tunnel on Fourth Avenue (now Park) between Eighty-eight and Ninety-fifth Streets. Calyo probably contrived the incident; however, it may be that the herculean task of digging and blasting the tunnel to completion had become something of a public attraction, witnessed here by the crowd at the railing beneath the hotel.

Artist

Nicolino Calyo

Date

ca.1837

Medium

Gouache on off-white wove paper

Culture

American

Department

The American Wing

Credit line

The Edward W. C. Arnold Collection of New York Prints, Maps, and Pictures, Bequest of Edward W. C. Arnold, 1954