Old New York in Colour - Part IV - Round Robin Selections

Shawn: 3rd Apr 2010 - 22:24 GMT

Really enjoying these sets. Thanks for sharing them.

This_IsRelevant: 3rd Apr 2010 - 22:32 GMT

Thank you so much for collecting these photos on your site. They are priceless!

joey: 5th Apr 2010 - 00:27 GMT

enjoyable colors. pre digital photo realism. i swear i saw Mr. Anderson from the Matrix on the street corner in one of those photos.

xak: 5th Apr 2010 - 13:33 GMT

Times square is amazingly different. These pics are great.

Keith: 5th Apr 2010 - 17:22 GMT

What fun! Awesome seeing the old skylines. Makes me want to dig up newer pictures of the same things to compare and contrast!

jack: 6th Apr 2010 - 15:06 GMT

as i wipe away the tears from my eyes i gaze upon a manhattan i grew up in, a times square i drank orange drinks at nedicks, a bonds where i bought my shirts from, downtown on cedar street where i worked my first real job and ate lunch under the old west side highway with its cobble stoned highway, the streets at 42nd when women wore dresses and men wore suits, the old marathon chevrolet yellow cabs with drivers who spoke english and new the streets, sigh, as i clutch my heart and reminisce all the old hangouts and streets, the west side story of my days, my old high school in hells kitchen, the old madison square garden, the architecture, i realize that it's all in those old photo's and is really no more. i need to get back to manhattan and roam the streets and take some photos. franny wentzel, thank you.

dglenn: 7th Apr 2010 - 14:09 GMT

Great post Franny. I assume most of these photos are from the late sixties.? I almost expected to see myself in one of them. I took a trip to NYC with my family in '67, I was 10 years old (yes I'm that old). These pics took me right back there.

Thanks!

Franny Wentzel: 7th Apr 2010 - 17:16 GMT

Most of these are from the 1940s and 50s with some mid-60s view representin' and maybe an 1930s view here or there. Half of these are leftovers from the Cushman collection which have definitive dates from 1942 and 1960.

A couple of these you can date from buildings under construction and anything with the Singer Bldg in it was pre-1967

KGrey: 9th Apr 2010 - 13:53 GMT

What a beautiful glimpse into the past. Jack, I must compliment you on a most eloquent expression of bittersweet memories. Karl

Roger: 13th Apr 2010 - 19:16 GMT

A masterly expression of life in Manhattan.Thankyou very much for letting us see these extraordinary photographs.

anon (c-174-55-30-146.hsd1.pa.comcast.net): 15th Apr 2010 - 17:21 GMT

I was born in 1952 in New Jersey. I was born in south Jersey in the Toms River area and then moved to Newark until the late 50s then moved back to Seaside Heights in the Ocean County area. My first experience with New York City was Not until 1964 when I went to the Worlds fair in Queens. I Never did get to see Manhattan Until I was in my late teens. I sure missed alot.

Janet: 15th Apr 2010 - 19:54 GMT

What a host of memories! Wonderful seeing these photos of Manhattan as one remembers it, particularly views of Broadway day and night. The buildings, movie houses, stores (like Bonds Clothes, Loew's State, Whelan Drugs) are not only familiar, they were visited frequently by me and my friends.

Janet: 17th Apr 2010 - 19:55 GMT

Every time I look at these, there's something new standing out brilliantly. I'm reminded of what fashion designer Oleg Cassini said when asked which was the greatest city in the world: New York, of course (he said). Every other city is a fraud by comparison.

joey: 18th Apr 2010 - 18:37 GMT

continuing old new theme_
www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/04/18/realestate/20100418-scapes.html?scp=3&sq=34th%20street&st=cse#1

Janet: 18th Apr 2010 - 19:30 GMT

Just looked at these photos posted by Joey. Remarkable, beautiful architectural detail: let's be grateful that the 50's-style reconstruction demons who demolished so much of Manhattan's irreplaceable historic buildings (case in point: Penn Station) didn't get their hungry claws on these treasures. Or did they?

WhiteCamry: 4th Jun 2010 - 19:01 GMT

The foreground of "Downtown from Jerseyside" looks like the remnants of an aircraft carrier. The legendary U. S. S. "Enterprise" (CV-6) was broken up at Kearny, N. J., from 1958-60.

Anyone who knows for certain whether or not that's the "Big E" in the photo, please shout out.

Franny Wentzel: 4th Jun 2010 - 19:19 GMT

This is what the USS Enterprise (CV-6) looked like when she arrived at the Kearny NJ scapyards...

I don't think its her as the guns were still in place on the ship in the picture even as the flight deck is being torn up...

Chaloots: 27th Jun 2010 - 14:23 GMT

I believe the view from the demolished carrier flight deck was the USS Franklin, which was the target of multiple kamikazes. She is on her way for repairs at the Navy shipyard in Brooklyn.

Franny Wentzel: 27th Jun 2010 - 19:52 GMT

Found a duplicate of that image at a USS Franklin webpage

www.navsource.org/archives/02/021315.jpg

More images here...

http://www.navsource.org/archives/02/13t.htm

eve harris hassman: 1st Aug 2010 - 15:22 GMT

manhattan was so wonderful in those days -- and the people really looked human-- what has become of our dignity-

Janet: 1st Aug 2010 - 19:28 GMT

Just looked at again--a marvel to behold the City in its glory days.

nancy: 9th Aug 2010 - 02:12 GMT

I wish these nice photos had credits. The photographers should be recognized.

Limbojoop: 11th Aug 2010 - 20:43 GMT

I'm not even from near NY but these pictures make me very melancholic. I wish I could be there and see,hear,smell and feel everything but it will never happen only reminds me to take pictures more often in my own neighborhood so that when I'm old they will make me melancholic again. Why do I torture myself.

Etuc: 11th Aug 2010 - 21:50 GMT

thanks for this - brings back happy memories of growing up in NYC during the early '60's. I remember my mother taking me into Manhattan for shopping when I was 4-10 years old, seeing these photos brings back the happy feelings I had back then.

Jerrycct: 12th Aug 2010 - 00:45 GMT

Just amazing. I remember Times Square from the '80's but those shots from before the highrises and the Disneyfication are priceless.

Lynne Elliott, Sydney Australia: 16th Aug 2010 - 01:37 GMT

Ive only been to New york through the movies but even I recognise some of the places shown. Thank you for such great photos.

GigiGarettiNJ: 23rd Sep 2010 - 17:25 GMT

I was born in Brooklyn, raised in Queens and now live in northern New Jersey. I can't stop looking at those pictures! It stirs up so many memories of the city I grew up in, the city I love and always will. Gimbels, A&S, Nedicks, Horn & Hardart, Chock Full O'Nuts (we didn't need Starbucks!) the Blarney Stone, Central Park, Times Square, late night skating at Rockefeller Center, The Village and all it's culture and amazing clubs...

My dad worked in the Empire State building for a time. I was an adult before I ever went to the top! I took so much for granted growing up. I worked in the now 30 Rock building (for Ralf Lauren - Warner/Lauren Cosmetics) when Time Warner had it. I loved combing through the album bins in the Warner store... yeah, vinyl albums - cheap - with my employee discount.

I blinked and now I have a daughter living there and attending college who has grown to love NYC every bit as much as I do. She can't imagine a better place to live and study. I blinked and now I have a son who's band plays regular gigs in the clubs I grew up in. He was a stock broker/trader in the now sadly gone "open outcry pit".

So much has changed. So much has stayed the same.

Those photos remind me of how my mom used to dress us up in matching outfits with lace trimmed anklet socks to go shopping (or do anything) in Manhattan.

I watched the towers being built. I was just a kid but I remember people talking about how they're enormity would negatively impact and change the skyline. I remember they became the skyline. I watched them come down and the void still makes my heart break.

Thank you for sharing these amazing photos! I'm bookmarking this page because every time I look through the pictures I see something else. What great memories...

anon (adsl-72-50-52-140.prtc.net): 13th Dec 2010 - 00:14 GMT

As a native New Yorker I really loved these photos from a time before mine.

Anomonous: 10th Feb 2012 - 03:30 GMT

It's awsome to see new York then. So much different then. Not as many buildings then now, a lot nicer then I think.

Franny Wentzel: 10th Feb 2012 - 08:27 GMT

Cities seem to look bigger when the buildings are made of brick and stone instead of glass and steel.

Jbt. Indiana: 14th Feb 2012 - 04:19 GMT

Perfer to live then than now. Life looked more simpler.

anon (adsl-69-183-247-75.dsl.wlfrct.sbcglobal.net): 17th Mar 2012 - 21:16 GMT

Thank you for such a wonderful hour on my computer god bless all of the people who took pictures -what a wonderful childhood I had living on the east side a simpler time with such wonderful neighbors,, never will I forget them Mrs Cohen who lived in the lavenburg what a wonderful human being. Hello to all my old friends Mollie Vera Edith Janet -- how manhy times have told someone of my growing up on the lower east side. memories never forgotten,. keep the phot's coming!!!!!!!!

john: 8th Sep 2012 - 04:11 GMT

Great photos. One that caugt my eye was a Schaefer beer truck parked opposite BryantPark. Thats when Schaefer was brewed in Brooklyn.