Shoeshine Boy – Chelsea Market, New York, New York

Chelsea Market is a food hall, shopping mall, office building and television production facility located in the Chelsea neighborhood of the borough of Manhattan, in New York City. It was built in the former National Biscuit Company (Nabisco) factory complex where the Oreo cookie was invented and produced. Construction of baking facilities by local concerns at this location began in the 1890s, and merger of several companies into the National Biscuit Company (often then known as NBC) occurred in 1898. Nabisco continued to expand the facilities until the company’s departure for the suburbs in 1958.

The majority of the original buildings consist of heavy timber wood construction with brick facades and were designed by the firm of Romeyn & Stever. There is also an interior pedestrian bridge on some upper levels to allow people to cross from the north to south sides of the courtyard. The building on the Tenth Avenue side is a later structure designed in the 1930s by Nabisco’s then-architect Louis Wirsching Jr. that replaced the original baking facilities there. Its construction coincided with that of the High Line, allowing a freight train siding to be built directly within the building itself. Rail and aluminum-clad walking bridge connections were also added going across 10th Avenue to tie in the existing 85 Tenth Avenue building across the street. The building on Tenth Avenue, which once was also part of the Nabisco complex but is now separately owned.