Tag Archives: Turn-of-the-Century

A Scandal In Gilded Age New York

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A Gilded Age Affair Cover-Up

Charles Hanson Towne (1877-1949) was a prolific author, poet  and editor of such prestigious magazines as Smart Set, Delineator, McClure’s, Designer, and Harper’s Bazaar.

As an urbane New Yorker, Towne’s hobnobbing with celebrities in literature, stage, politics and society was de riguer. His acquaintances also gave him access to juicy gossip.

In the second of Towne’s memoirs (he wrote three), This New York Of Mine, Cosmopolitan (1931), he relates an apocryphal story which occurred at the turn-of-the-century that Towne claims is true.

There are no names attached to the tale. But if the facts are correct an online detective could figure out Continue reading →

Sexual Innuendo Postcards – Same Message With Different Risque Images

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The Risque Postcard 1906-1908

While both of these double entendre postcards would be considered risque around 1900, the photographs are quite different.

This first postcard of “Practice This Piece With Me” from 1907 implies making out during piano practice time.

The second postcard goes a bit further. Notice where his hand is. Continue reading →

Book Review – Of Things That Used To Be, The Bronx In The Early 20th Century

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A Step Up From New York’s Tenements

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 →

Can You Spot The Turn-Of-The-Century Champion Coney Island Lifeguard?

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Which Of These Lifeguards Is Captain Thomas Riley Who Saved Hundred Of Coney Island Swimmers?

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 →

Old New York In Photos #141 – Children’s Recreation On Rooftops

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Children On New York’s Rooftops 1909-1910

Children playing on a roof in New York City April 28, 1910 from the series Living On (A) Skyscraper photo George G. Bain Collection Library of Congress (LOC)

In the early twentieth century the roofs of New York would offer a respite from hot days in New York. While roofs could be dangerous, the streets were full of peril with horses, trolleys and filth.

The news organization headed by George G. Bain sent its photographers up to the roofs to see life from this perspective. Continue reading →

Old New York In Photos #135 – Curling In Central Park

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Curling, “The Roarin’ Game” At Central Park 1894

Curling in Central Park 1894 photo – Joseph Byron later published by Detroit Publishing  

It may not be the most popular sport but curling may get the most television airtime during the 2022 Winter Olympics. Continue reading →

American Magazine Advertising 1904 – These Companies Have Bitten The Dust

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Part II – Advertising From The Century Magazine October 1904 – Companies That Are Extinct

Underwood began production of typewriters in 1895. Up until 1959 when they were acquired by Olivetti, Underwood sold millions of typewriters. They made their last typewriter in the 1980s.

As we continue our look at advertising from the October 1904 issue of The Century Magazine we turn our gaze to the ads of companies that are no longer in business. Some names will be familiar to you, many others will not. Continue reading →

The Big Department Store In New York In 1898 – Siegel-Cooper

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Some Facts About Siegel Cooper – The Big Store 1898

Siegel Cooper Dpartment store postcard 18th Street 6th Avenue New York CitySiegel-Cooper Department Store has been gone for over 100 years. But in 1898, Henry Siegel and Frank H. Cooper’s emporium was the Amazon of its day.

In the 1890s Siegel and Cooper successfully operated a department store in Chicago before setting their sights on an expansion in New York.

What Siegel, the driving force of the concern, conceived in New York was not just a department store, it was the “Big Store.” The Siegel-Cooper Department Store was built on Sixth Avenue between 18th and 19th streets. It was a great location, then being New York’s primary shopping district known as the “Ladies Mile.” Within a half mile stretch of Sixth Avenue between 14th and 23rd Streets could be found the giants of retailing including Macy’s; Altman’s; Hugh O’Neill’s; Adam’s Dry Goods;, Ehrich Brothers; and Simpson, Crawford & Simpson.

The Siegel-Cooper Big Store building opened on September 12, 1896 and was an instant smash with the public.

Siegel-Cooper provided the nineteenth century shopper with a incredible array of goods, from abdominal bands to zephyrs and everything in between. Perhaps the most unusual article available for sale was “Baby”, a live, baby female elephant. Baby was sold within two weeks of the store’s opening for $2,000.

Among the store’s innovations was a nursery with trained nurses Continue reading →

Old New York In Photos #119 – View From The Roof Of The Flatiron Building c. 1910

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The View From The Roof Of The Flatiron Building c. 1910

Madison Square From Flatiron Building Keystone-Mast Collection, UCR/California Museum of Photography, University of California at RiversideNew York photographers around the turn-of-the-century were always looking for unique vantage points to shoot from.

Here the Keystone Co. photographer went up to the roof of the Flatiron Building and took this shot around 1910. The gentleman in the foreground could be the photographer’s assistant. As the intrepid hatless man dangles his legs over the edge of the roof, we see the northeast cityscape.

A Good View Of The Buildings Along Lower Madison Avenue

In the foreground the trees of Madison Square Park can be seen. To the extreme right on Madison Avenue is the Metropolitan Life Building, the tallest building in the world from 1909-1913.

Next in our photo the building with the dome is the new Madison Square Presbyterian Church.

Metropolitan Life acquired the original Madison Square Presbyterian Church on the southeast corner of 24th Street in 1903 intending to build their new skyscraper Continue reading →

Old New York In Postcards #21 – 1920s & 1930s New York City Aerial Images

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New York City In The 1920s & 1930s As Seen By Airplane

A Vanished Skyline

Peenn Station Area from airplane 1920sWhen in lower Brooklyn, Queens or bicycling across the George Washington Bridge, I look at the New York City skyline. It has become something I do not recognize.

New York is a city that architecturally alters itself every year. It comes as no surprise that there are buildings that now obscure the sight of what were once tourist magnets.

The Woolworth, Bankers Trust, Equitable, Municipal, Citicorp and Chrysler Buildings are dwarfed by new neighbors. Fifty Seventh Street is now an ugly amalgamation of needle glass towers selling for $40 million to absentee owners.

I never experienced the grandeur of the classic Manhattan skyline. It had mostly vanished by the 1960s in a spate of modern construction in the financial district and midtown. However, even through the 1980s there was not an infestation of buildings that blocked New York’s most notable structures.

But in the past fifteen years the New York skyline has been overhauled. In the process obliterating the uniqueness of New York. New, mammoth unattractive buildings are now spreading like a fungus in the city. The skyline seen now could be Chicago, Los Angeles or Houston. It has been impossible to stop a bunch of undistinguished architectural monstrosities to destroy the vistas that made New York famous.

Let us return to the 1920s and 30s when New York City looked like NEW YORK CITY. Here are some aerial postcard views showing what was once a picturesque city.

Click on any image to enlarge as all of these postcards are real photo. I scanned many (not all) of them at 300 dpi so the detail is pretty clear when enlarged.

New York from the south aerial view 1930sLooking north we have a fantastic overview of the entire southern portion of the island.

aerial lower manhattan east river 1930s aerialAnother classic view when approaching Manhattan from the south showing the piers and many turn-of-the-century and art deco buildings that proliferate in lower Manhattan.

Aerial view of Lower Manhattan from the Hudson Looking east across the Hudson another at the southern tip of Manhattan. This view captures most of the important buildings in the financial district.  Continue reading →