Clearly interested in showing the human condition, Walker Evans photographed this assembly of down-and-out men lounging and sleeping in doorways on South Street in lower Manhattan. Their weary bodies are strewn across the lower half of the frame like discarded props on a stage.

The advertisement for the St. George Hotel pool, posted at left and featuring a bathing beauty, was probably not meant to draw in any of these denizens of the street. A keen observer of detail, Evans was aware of the irony that the juxtaposition presented.