The scene depicted in this work is the intersection of Charles and West Fourth Street, Greenwich Village, New York City.  The scene was chosen by the artist's dealer of Kennedy & Company, not by Lewis himself.  According to correspondence  between Lewis and Bertha Jacques, Director of the Chicago Society of Etchers, in 1929, the work was titled Speakeasy Corner until Kennedy changed it to  Relics.  Thus both titles have been in use since. From the 1975 catalogue raisonné The prints of Martin Lewis: 'Frank Schmidt, a long time Village resident, has verified the supposed location of a speakeasy in the ground-floor apartment of the building at upper left of the composition... In writing about  Relics in 1934 under the pen name Childe Reese, Albert Reese of Kennedy &  Company related the title to the corner bar rather than to a reputed neighbourhood speakeasy: "We are looking down on a saloon which time and the  federal government has reduced to straitened circumstances."'(1)
Donna McColm, Curatorial Assistant, International Art, Jan. 2003.
Endnote1. McCarron, Paul. 'The prints of Martin Lewis: Catalogue raisonné'. M.  Hausberg, Bronxville, New York, 1995, p.136.