Looking West From The Corner Of Third Avenue & 86th Street – March 1, 1920

This photograph was taken by the Department of Bridges official photographer,  Eugene de Salignac.

For over three decades until 1934, de Salignac took thousands of photographs for his job with the city. Many show an artistic eye and were compiled in New York Rises: Photographs by Eugene de Salignac (2007) Aperture.The scene above is not necessarily a pretty one with filthy hardened snow piled high in the street.

In the background is the Third Avenue El. On the north side of 86th Street is a Liggett’s Riker-Hegeman Drug Store, once one of the largest chain stores in New York.  The window and awning advertise candy, cigars, perfume, gifts, combs, “rubber goods,”  soda, food and of course prescriptions.

A horse drawn delivery wagon for Orange Co. Bottled Milk and Cream makes its way along 86th Street.

105 years later every structure visible in this photograph is gone.