What year is this? #5: answer

Thank you for posting such great responses.

In particular, thank you to Phil Beard, Joel and Erik, who very precisely identified the picture and its date. I appreciate your patience.

Your comments were divided almost equally between those who thought this was a photograph of models, taken recently, and those who thought it was a genuine picture from the 1930s / 1940s.

Highlight the space below to find out what Phil, Joel and Erik already knew:

September 1939, in Minneapolis, Minn. The picture was featured recently on the historic photo blog Shorpy, and Phil Beard explains why it looks uncannily like a model:

“It’s an FSA photo by John Vachon. He had a passion for leaning out of high windows in search of that Constructivist angle on the world.”

and as Ashley pointed out:

“The camera has a “tilt” lens, which can do strange things with the focus plane. Tilting camera lenses were much more common prior to the 1950’s.“

…..

Thank you very much to Shorpy.