Tag Archives: New York History

The Unbuilt Lower Manhattan Dock Complex – 1922

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Gigantic, Never Built Dock Buildings Along The Hudson

Originally this illustration appeared in the January 26, 1922 issue of The New York Times Mid-Week Pictorial magazine. We colorized this birdseye view of The Battery showing lower Manhattan crowded with ships and skyscraper buildings.

It also shows something that never came to be.

On the left is a series of uniform buildings stretching along the Hudson River waterfront. Today this area is the site of Battery Park City.

The Times description Continue reading →

New York City Taxis Of The 1920s & 1930s

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The Taxi Cabs Of New York City Of The 1920s & 1930s

At the turn-of-the century, New York City had over a million horses serving the public.  That situation was greatly affected by the arrival of automobiles. By the 1920s there were few horse drawn carriages still transporting people to their destinations. Along with the subway and buses, the taxi / auto industry had taken the horse’s place.

So what did these early taxi cabs look like? Below are some examples.

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Fashions Of The 1970s – Men’s & Women’s T-Shirts

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The Fashionable T-Shirt 1973

August 17, 1973 – New York: T-shirt collectors vie to outdo each other. Nancy Greenberg wears gaudy New York souvenir shirt. What mother never told Kathleen O’Connell about is Ultra-Brite toothpaste. French Gitanes shirt worn by Paula Scher is more desirable than American brands; photos: Nancy Moran / New Yoik Times

August 17, 1973 – New York: Jean-Louis Hym’s Liberation shirt from Paris proclaims underground paper. Joel Handrroff, an artist, is not a country music fan, but he likes the shirt because of the black-on-yellow color scheme. Barry Levine’s extols Automotive High School. photo: Nancy Moran / New York Times

Fashions may change, but t-shirts have remained a staple of young people for more than half a century as evidenced by these photographs of young New Yorkers taken in 1973.

If you are wondering what a standard t-shirt cost in the early seventies, generally it was $1.98 for a regular t-shirt and $2.98 for a deluxe heavier cotton. Specialty t-shirts cost more. Continue reading →

Book Review – Building The Metropolis By Alexander Wood

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Building New York City 1880 – 1935

A tremendous flurry of construction in New York City occurred between the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. New Yorker’s know many of the the notable accomplishments; the subway, the skyscrapers, apartment buildings, bridges and infrastructure. But who built New York? And how did it get built?

Stories Previously Untold

Alexander Wood provides the nitty-gritty about how the modern city came to be in Building The Metropolis Architecture, Construction, and Labor in New York City, 1880 – 1935 (University of Chicago Press), 2025.

Building The Metropolis digs into the architects, unions, developers and the industries that made New York.

Even with thousands of books previously written about New York, Wood uncovers ground that has not been thoroughly explored. The result is an entertaining examination into the details of developing New York. Continue reading →

A Rarity – Summer Vacations In The Late 19th Century

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19th Century Summer Vacation?

For Most People There Was No Such Thing.

Congress Hall Hotel, Saratoga Springs, NY ad 1886

Summer is underway. For many people summer vacation plans are in place.

Yet, vacations are something we take for granted and are a relatively modern notion.

What was leisure like in the late 1870s?

Your family lives in the city. Your job as a shipping clerk; pressman; dressmaker; bookkeeper; engineer; blacksmith; engraver or iron worker pays the bills, and you may be able to put a little money aside each month.

New York Sun Help Wanted ads 1872

Your work schedule: 10 hours a day, six days a week.

Days off?

One. Sunday. The Lord’s day of rest. Continue reading →

Crime In New York City 1838 & Today

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New York City Crimes Committed And Their Sentences 1838

 Jail Time Then – Leniency Now

How many people long for the good old days when it comes to punishing crime?

Some people may lament the lack of strict law enforcement in New York today. There has always been crime in New York, but how has crime and its consequences changed? Continue reading →

New York City Prostitution in 1870

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New York Prostitution By The Numbers – 1870

Over 10,000 Prostitutes Of All Types In A City of 942,292

A Mix Of Farmers Daughters, Servants, Teetotalers, Drunkards, Native Born, Recent Immigrants, Widows, The Young, Single & Refined Ladies & Illiterates

Illustration From George Ellington's book The Women Of Of New YorkFrom 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 →

Old New York In Photos #154 – 1920, New Traffic Tower On 42nd St. & 5th Ave

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Fifth Avenue & 42nd Street With New Traffic Signal Tower 1920

This amateur snapshot captures the manually operated signal tower to control traffic along the busy stretch of Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street. We are looking north from 42nd Street with Temple Emanu El beyond the flags.

The tower was active in February 1920 to “control congestion,” not just for vehicles but pedestrians. Continue reading →

Book Review – American Rascal Jay Gould By Greg Steinmetz

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Jay Gould: A Rascal Or Shrewd Businessman?

It would be impossible today for one person to cause the collapse of the stock market, corner the gold market or just print stock shares in a large-cap corporation as needed.

Not that Jay Gould single-handedly did any of these things.

He had help. Continue reading →

When We Used To Manufacture Things In The United States

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U.S. Manufacturing And Industry In Cities In The 1930s

When The U.S.A. Did Not Rely Upon Imports

See What 16 Cities Of The United States Used To Produce

Worker at furniture factory, Arthurdale, West Virginia 1937 photo: Ben Shahn via Library of Congress

As the Covid-19 debacle made clear to Americans we are now dependent upon foreign countries for many of the things necessary to conduct our daily lives.”Supply-chain” issues have been one of the main reasons given to explain the shortages of thousands of products. Continue reading →