There is little in this image to indicate that residential neighborhood along New York's Fifth Avenue would become a well-known center of commercial activity. Rows of single-family brownstones with grand front stoops line the wide corridor. While children play on the broad sidewalk and carriages make deliveries, a group of girls stand on the small balcony of the corner house. In the distance, the 1854 steeple of Marble Collegiate Church at 29th Street punctuates the rows of recently built homes and newly planted trees.