Jersey City 1940-1960: The Dan McNulty Collection

By: Kenneth French

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Synopsis: Photographer Dan McNulty was a Jersey City resident who spent most of his time working in his family's funeral home. McNulty's photography was a mere sideline, but this fact did not affect the high artistic quality of the images of the city that he produced during the 1940s and '50s. During the two decades of McNulty's work, Jersey City experienced many changes. The powerful political machine of Mayor Frank Hague was brought down after thirty yearsin 1949 by the reform team of John V. Kenny, and this period also saw the end of the city's success in the railroad industry. In the 1950s, the first large housing projects were constructed in the city; other sweeping developments in this sphere would follow in the 1960s. McNulty documented these changes and others that resulted during this twenty year period through dramatic photographs of vacant railroad terminals, dynamic commercial and residential districts, successful factories and manufacturing plants, and significant WPA projects such as the Jersey City Medical Center and Roosevelt Stadium.