The stoneworkers pictured here are among the hundreds of people, their names largely unknown to us today, who built the bookman’s paradise. They were photographed in a Bronx shop full of intricately carved marble blocks destined for the loggia of J. Pierpont Morgan’s Library. Charles Follen McKim, the lead architect and creative force behind the Library, relied on a team of proficient drafters in McKim, Mead & White’s studio to create the drawings that articulated his vision. He engaged Charles T. Wills as general contractor and a host of specialists to build and ornament the Library. Just after construction began in 1903, a series of strikes brought the entire New York building industry to a standstill. Progress on the Library was delayed as workers sought improved conditions and better pay.
Stone carvers in the shop of Robert C. Fisher & Co., late 1904 or 1905. Museum of the City of New York, 90.44.1.675