Nathan (Nat) D. Lobell’s Of Things That Used To Be A Childhood On Fox Street In The Bronx In The Early Twentieth Century is a memoir concentrating on a striving South Bronx neighborhood full of immigrants, primarily Jewish, Irish and Italian between World War I and the 1920s. Continue reading
Our photograph was taken around 1905 by the Byron Company (1888-1942), a partnership of Joseph Byron and his son Percy C. Byron. The Byron’s and their employees took thousands of photographs in and around New York City from the 1880s until the 1940s.
This view looking down Fifth Avenue from between 25th and 26th Street at the edge of Madison Square Park shows the Flatiron Building in the hazy background. Continue reading
This 1935 photograph is from city street photographer Percy Loomis Sperr.
We are looking east from First Avenue and 67th Street and shows the land that would soon be the site for Memorial Hospital for the Treatment of Cancer and Allied Diseases.
This plot of land stretching from York Avenue to First Avenue between 67th and 68th Street was donated to Memorial Hospital by John D. Rockefeller. This neighborhood today houses numerous medical institutions.
Over the ensuing decades, every visible building along 68th Street; the tenements, a blacksmith shop, auto repair shop and ambulance company would be demolished for expansion of hospital buildings.
The large building complex with the tower Continue reading
There are certainly people who have never seen a pay phone before. And people who are familiar with pay phones may have only seen them with push buttons. Rotary dial phones were replaced in the 1970s by push buttons. Whereas pay phones managed to remain ubiquitous until the 1990s.
Pay phones were once everywhere. You could find them in hotels restaurants, gas stations, drug stores, transportation facilities, office and public buildings and on street corners,
The ad above ran in the September 11, 1971 New Yorker magazine.
In 1970 vandals cost American Telephone and Telegraph $12 million Continue reading
The two illustrations seen here are excerpts from a full page ad. This advertisement comes from the April 27, 1919 New York Sun daily newspaper. Shown is an array of intimates of the late teens that a fashionable woman would wear beneath their clothes.
The uptown location of James McCreery & Co. at Fifth Avenue and 34th Street Continue reading
For over 150 years Coney Island has attracted visitors to sample its beach, cuisine and amusement parks.
This magic lantern slide photograph shows an attraction that was more of a curiosity. Though It was only in existence for 11 years, hundreds of thousands of people came to see the Elephantine Colossus.
It was not a ride, but Continue reading
Here are two views of Fifth Avenue from the 1891 book History And Commerce Of New York (American Publishing and Engraving).
In our first illustration above we are looking north along Fifth Avenue towards The Hotel Brunswick (with flag on the roof) at the corner of 26th Street.
The second illustration below, Continue reading
It’s 12:20 in the afternoon according to the clock at Grand Central Depot as horse drawn vehicles congregate nearby.
We are looking north from 41st Street and Park Avenue. This contemporary colored magic lantern slide is from around 1895. Continue reading
This circa 1900 Detroit Publishing Co. photograph is captioned “Capt. Riley and Life Guards, Coney Island, N.Y.”
But which of them is Captain Riley? Click on the photo to have a much closer look.
The obvious choice would be the man in the cap wearing a dark colored shirt that says “Balmers Life Guard.”
Wearing a lifeguard shirt does not mean you are one or in charge of a group. Continue reading
Our Detroit Publishing Co. photograph is from 1906 and shows Eighth Avenue looking north. It is at this juncture the Ninth Avenue elevated completes its turn from Ninth avenue to Eighth Avenue at 110th Street and proceeds uptown.
As usual there was a postcard issued that almost certainly came from this photograph. The advertising and perspective are exactly the same, but the postcard contains many alterations.
For dramatic effect Continue reading