This barren scene is Sixth Avenue (renamed Lenox Avenue in 1887 and additionally named Malcom X Boulevard in 1987) just north of Central Park.
As the northern boundary of the city kept expanding the grading and opening of streets continued further north. Continue reading
This street of upper middle class gentility is 38th Street looking east from Fifth Avenue.
Our stereoview photograph was taken by E & H.T. Anthony & Co. about 1870.
Besides the horse drawn wagon Continue reading
From an interesting and self-published 1870 book, Personals or Perils of the Period by Joseph Hertford comes this analysis of the prostitutes of New York. There were at least 10,000 prostitutes coming from various work backgrounds and social statuses. Excerpting from this chapter, Hertford writes: Continue reading
We are looking north along Fifth Avenue to the east side of 42nd Street.
When looking at these stereoviews it’s always nice to pin a date on the scene. While it is impossible to exactly date this stereoview, it is definitely before 1881.
During the 1870s, the nearest building at the northeast corner of 42nd Street, number 503 Fifth Avenue belonged to Levi P Morton, Vice President of the United States from 1889 – 1893 and Governor of New York from 1895-1896. Continue reading
We see that marriage by capture, either as a stern reality or as an important ceremony, prevails in Australia and among the Malays, in Hindostan, Central Asia, Siberia, and Kamskatka; among the Esquimaux, the Northern Redskins, the Aborigines of Brazil, in Chile and Tierra del Fuego, in the Pacific Islands, both among the Polynesians and the Fijians, in the Philippines, among the Arabs and Negroes, in Circassia, and, until recently, throughout a great part of Europe.
In Australia little real affection exists between husbands and wives, and young men value a wife principally for her services as a slave. In fact, when asked why they are anxious to obtain wives, their usual reply is, that they “may get wood, water, and food for them, and carry whatever property they possess.”
The position of women in Australia seems indeed to be wretched in the extreme. They are treated with the utmost brutality, beaten and speared in the limbs on the most trivial provocation. Few women, says Eyre, will be found, upon examination, to be free from frightful scars upon the head, or the marks of spear wounds about the body. I have seen a young woman who, from the number of these marks, appeared to have been almost riddled with spear wounds. If at all good-looking their position is, if possible, even worse than otherwise.
The Origin of Civilisation And The Primitive Condition Of Man – Mental and Social Condition Of Savages by Sir John Lubbock, Member Parliament, Baronet, Fellow of the Royal Society. Author of Prehistoric Times, etc. Vice President of the Ethnological Society, Fellow of the Linnean, Geological and Entomological And Other Societies. London: Longmans Green and Co. 1870
You have just read a small sample of historic inhumanity not unique to Australia.
Europe, Asia and the America’s furnish abundant examples of similar behavior in uncivilized societies.
The frightening aspect of this, is that the reality of cultural relativism has been conveniently forgotten. Continue reading
This first stereoview photograph was taken by the pioneering New York photography firm E. & H.T. Anthony around 1870.
We are looking west from the southwest corner of 26th Street and Madison Avenue. Continue reading
When I was young I enjoyed dying eggs for Easter. The “sport” that followed was the Easter Egg hunt, looking around the house for those hidden decorated eggs.
So I was intrigued when I came across Continue reading
The photographic firm of E. & H.T. Anthony & Co. captured this unusual view of New York’s City Hall on a warm sunny day in 1870.
The view shows a vacant plaza in front of this normally bustling area . Continue reading
Our third installment of illustrations taken from Reverend J.F. Richmond’s New York and Its Institutions 1609-1871 (E.B. Treat; 1871) looks at what remains today. Continue reading
We continue our look at New York of 150 years ago from Reverend J.F. Richmond’s New York and Its Institutions 1609-1871 (E.B. Treat; 1871).
The names may be familiar, but possibly not the building or site.
While Central Park has remained a constant presence in New York City for over 160 years, it has constantly changed.
There were always developers looking to infringe upon the park with buildings and schemes. A fair portion of Central Park has managed to keep its original spirit, but many of its early additions have changed or no longer exist.
The Children’s Playground in Central Park. There was no “Great Lawn” when Central Park was built. The Great Lawn opened in 1937, the result of filling in one of the two receiving reservoirs located within the park. The Central Park Playground seen above is an open field where children can play within its great expanse. This section was located in the southern end of the park, now site of the Heckscher playground and ballfields. Continue reading