Gordon Burris photographs
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Abstract
Approximately 312 photographic prints by Gordon Guild Burris (1903–1988), a Canadian-born civil engineer employed by the Turner Construction Company in New York during the 1920s and 1930s. Burris photographed the construction projects to which he was assigned, such as the Hotel Lexington, Bloomingdale's department store, and the Port of New York Authority Commerce Building / Union Inland Terminal No. 1 (all in Manhattan), Pilgrim State Hospital (Brentwood, Long Island), the New Jersey Bell Telephone Headquarters (Newark), and the Convention Hall at Asbury Park, New Jersey. He often took shots of the surrounding neighborhoods from upper floors of the incomplete structures. The collection also includes views of campgrounds, parks, beaches, boats, bridges, and waterways in the vicinity of greater New York City, as well as images of friends, coworkers, and of Burris himself. Some photographs document his native Nova Scotia in 1922–1923.
Biographical Note
Gordon Guild Burris was born on 21 April 1903 at Stewiacke, Colchester County, Nova Scotia, Canada, to William Norman and Anne Kerr (Guild) Burris. He studied surveying at Dalhousie University, in Halifax, in the class of 1922–1923 (see the group photos in Folder 1, below, where he is identified by his initials, "G. B."). He emigrated to the United States on 5 June 1923, crossing the border via the Grand Trunk Railway, and settled at Detroit. Ten days later he declared his intention to become a U.S. citizen. Burris completed the naturalization process in 1931, signing the oath of allegiance on January 12. By then he had been living for two years at a Bronx, New York, Y.M.C.A. (470 East 161st Street), and working for the Turner Construction Company as an engineer. It is unclear if his official duties included photographing the building projects to which he was assigned, or if Burris simply enjoyed taking pictures as a hobby. Whatever the reason, he captured construction methods and machinery in addition to the surrounding neighborhoods of the unfinished structures from their upper stories.
Burris served in the U.S. Army between 1942 and 1945, although a 1932 photograph of him in uniform captioned "Pvt. G.G. Burris" attests to an earlier term (see Folder 35, below). He eventually became a photographer for the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts at Richmond.
Burris died, age 85, at Morristown, Lamoille County, Vermont, on 6 June 1988. He never married.
Arrangement
The entire collection is housed chronologically in one small box. Gordon Burris kept his photographic negatives and prints in numbered, dated envelopes. (Only numbers 10–17, 21–43, 51–52, and 58–62, covering the years 1927–1935, are part of the present collection.) On the envelopes Burris typed a caption for each image inside, the date he shot it, focal length, exposure time, and other details. He also wrote or typed an expanded version of each caption on the reverse of its corresponding print. The prints and empty envelopes (each envelope held from six to twelve negatives and prints) are now stored in folders, with the envelopes behind the prints. A few unnumbered, but dated envelopes are interfiled chronologically (folders 1, 22, 30, 37, and 38). The last folder (44) holds four postcards.
Scope and Contents
The collection contains approximately 312 photographic prints from the years 1922–1923 and 1927–1935. (Roughly 278 negatives on possibly unstable, nitrate base film have been transferred to cold storage in the N-YHS Conservation Lab). The majority of the photographs were taken by Gordon Guild Burris, who dated and captioned each image.
The earliest group of photographs (Folder 1) captures his native Nova Scotia in 1922–1923, just before he left for the United States. Of interest to researchers of the built environment of greater New York City are the views taken at Turner Construction Company jobsites. Burris worked for Turner as an engineer, and, possibly as one of his duties, documented the progress of the buildings and their environments. Among the Turner projects are the following, listed in the order in which they first appear in the collection:
- New Jersey Bell Telephone Headquarters, 540 Broad Street, Newark (Folders 5–8, 10)
- Hotel Lexington, 511 Lexington Avenue, Manhattan (Folders 11, 13, 18, and 20)
- Bloomingdale's, Lexington Avenue at 59th Street, Manhattan (Folders 21, 23–24, 27–29)
- Pilgrim State Hospital, Brentwood, New York (Folders 24, 26)
- Convention Hall, Asbury Park, New Jersey (Folder 25)
- Port of New York Authority Commerce Building (currently home to Google's New York offices), 111 Eighth Avenue, Manhattan (Folders 34–35)
Burris traveled with friends and coworkers in the vicinity of greater New York City, often by ferry or excursion boat, and so documented the waterways, bridges, and boats he saw. He photographed campsites and parks, too, such as Indian Point Park, an amusement venue previously on the site of the Indian Point Energy Center in Buchanan, New York (Folder 15), and points of interest, like the Fire Island Lighthouse (Folder 33). The myriad locations of the photographs are noted in the container list, below.
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Conditions Governing Access
Negatives stored in N-YHS conservation lab freezer, shelf B2. Other materials in this collection may be stored offsite. For more information on making arrangements to consult them, please visit www.nyhistory.org/library/visit.
Conditions Governing Use
Taking images of documents from the library collections for reference purposes by using hand-held cameras and in accordance with the library's photography guidelines is encouraged. As an alternative, patrons may request up to 20 images per day from staff.
Application to use images from this collection for publication should be made in writing to: Department of Rights and Reproductions, The New-York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West, New York, NY 10024-5194, rightsandrepro@nyhistory.org. Phone: (212) 873-3400 ext. 282.
Copyrights and other proprietary rights may subsist in individuals and entities other than the New-York Historical Society, in which case the patron is responsible for securing permission from those parties. For fuller information about rights and reproductions from N-YHS visit: https://www.nyhistory.org/about/rights-reproductions
Preferred Citation
This collection should be cited as the Gordon Burris Photographs, PR 333, Department of Prints, Photographs, and Architectural Collections, The New-York Historical Society.
Credit line (for exhibition labels): Gift of Richard C. Nylander.
Location of Materials
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Gift of Richard C. Nylander (cousin of the photographer), March 2017.
About this Guide
Processing Information
Processed by Archivist Joseph Ditta, August, 2017.