Snow falls on a narrow New York side street, seen straight down its length. Brown brick houses with snow-heaped stoops line the right side, a tall pale building rises into the gray storm, and a lone street lamp stands at the left. Wagons and horse-drawn carriages push through the rutted slush, and a few bundled figures, touched with red and yellow, gather on the left. Robert Henri dated the canvas March 5, 1902.

His record book describes the view: East 55th Street from Sixth Avenue, brown houses at Fifth Avenue, storm, snow, a wagon to the right. The dealer William Macbeth had urged him to paint New York views for a solo show the next month, and Henri hoped for acclaim like that of La Neige, his Paris snow scene bought for the Musée du Luxembourg. The National Gallery of Art notes how unprettified it is: a plain side street, rough brushwork, somber colors. The picture was shown at Macbeth's gallery in 1902 and found a buyer, but only one other work sold, and the museum says this led Henri to turn mainly to portraiture.

The collector Chester Dale gave it to the National Gallery of Art in 1954. It is in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.