Fulton Fish Market 1953

This stark woodcut by Antonio Frasconi captures the Fulton Fish Market, a place teeming with commerce and labor. Above the bustle, notice the abstract mass of ladders and scaffolding. Ladders, as symbols, have long been associated with ascent, progress, and connection between different realms. Think of Jacob's Ladder in the Bible, a pathway between Heaven and Earth. But here, repeated and fractured, they suggest not divine access but the chaotic structure of human enterprise. Consider the Tower of Babel: a symbol of human ambition reaching too far. The ladders, in their disordered state, could evoke a similar sense of striving without clear direction, a collective unconscious anxiety about unchecked industrial growth. This anxiety resurfaces throughout history, from medieval allegories to modern anxieties about technology, reminding us that every step forward is also a precarious climb.