Reply With Quotethe sky shot over midtown incorrectly identifies St. Thomas church as the place of Jackie O's funeral. Jackie O was roman catholic. St. thomas church is an Episcopal Church. Her funeral was at a Catholic church further uptown.
NYC in Black and White--Comparison
Nice collection on photos. I have some more recent ones on my web site, circa 1980-1990. www.bqephoto.com It is interesting to see how the City is evolving. Dan
St. Thomas Church mis-identified
the sky shot over midtown incorrectly identifies St. Thomas church as the place of Jackie O's funeral. Jackie O was roman catholic. St. thomas church is an Episcopal Church. Her funeral was at a Catholic church further uptown.
Last edited by sp5ive; April 18th, 2007 at 08:42 PM. Reason: spelling
Way more than New York in B/W!!!
I am more than ever desirous of seeing this city. If the city itself has 1/10th the draw of those photos, i will be happy. A++++ job. Most of the crime fiction takes place in big cities and NY seems to be the biggest setting. So many of my favorite stars, writers, poets and artists live there I just have to see it. Thanks for sharing your wonderful vision.
I would quote, but there were too many pictures so I couldn't be bothered to go through the whole thing and find the one picture.
But anyway, I'll admit felt a tang of sadness when I saw that pic by the original poster of West St back in 1885, when the World Trade Center hadn't even been thought of and it's terrible death was more than a hundred years away...
But great pictures, everybody. New York looked so elegant (and still does) while it was growing up!
(This is my 343rd post!! Remember the 9/11 firefighters!!)
Last edited by Joelio; April 21st, 2007 at 04:44 PM.
Since this thread has been resurrected, thought I'd take another look. Never get tired of seeing old photos of New York's architectural heritage and sometimes feeling sad knowing something has been replaced, but often feeling elated by the knowledge that a lot of it is still there.
Thanks, Ablarc, for taking the considerable trouble to post them all.
Tower trio. Slender flattop is Irving Trust, tower at right now belongs to Trump.
If you're referring to the left-most tower, Ablarc, it's (formerly) City Bank Farmers Trust or 20 Exchange Place. The shorter tower to the right of 40 Wall (Trump) is Irving Trust. I'm sure you knew that.
This is gonna sound really weird, but the city actually looks sexy in black and white...
That downtown skyline puts today's to shame.
Yeah. The skyline from the 30s was impressive (and there's a great documentary about how they recreated it in the 3 disk edition of King King, you should check it out sometime if you can). All the different styles used and the absence of glass facade was very authentic, and must have looked incredible from the top of the Empire State Building. It's great that a lot of those old skyscrapers (Like the GE Building, the Woolworth Building, the Chrysler Building and, of course, the ESB, and many others) still exist among the skyline today.
But is it just me or do the taller skyscrapers in Downtown in these photos look a lot taller than they do these days? A lot of the new skyscrapers tower high above these ones, which makes all these old ones look very short, like the Woolworth Building.
It's the slender tapering profiles -- plus the space around them -- that made them appear to rise forever. The bulkiness of newer buildings gives them a visual weight that roots them to the ground -- lots of mass, but not necessarily much upward thrusting energy, which is a hallmark of older NYC skyscrapers.
Plus when those classic NYC skyscrapers went up they were the tallest buildings in the world, and all together here in one place. They played off one another.
Yeah, you're probably right. We need a new version of this picture:Originally Posted by lofter1
Lofter, could you do that sometime? Or anyone else in New York? It'd be nice to get the comparison. And I'll give you a cookie...
Tower trio. Slender flattop is Irving Trust, tower at right now belongs to Trump.
Last edited by Joelio; April 21st, 2007 at 06:17 PM.
An historical tour de force...
Looking at pics of some of New Yourk's lost jewels makes me just want to weep. But, overall, it was a fun tour through the decades. The greatest city in the world, in my humble opinion. Too bad it's such a chore to get there--thank God for that marvelous mass transit system!
Hmm... I thought a black background might be interesting... I cleaned up some double posted photos from the end, moved everything to the centre and took the liberty of removing the slightly over the top footage of running horses, etc.
Hope this is satisfactory. Bit of a museum piece really...
http://www.wn100.plus.com/NewYorkB&W.htm <<< old url
-----
January 2009 update:
I moved house and we get cable here so I have a completely new internet setup. Therefore, the new url is:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/graffiti/NewYorkB&W.htm
Since June 2007 the old url had 336 visits. Nice.
Last edited by fonebone; January 7th, 2009 at 10:14 PM. Reason: new isp therefore new link address
It was a amazing city and still
Nice job.
buying photos on site
Does anyone know who I can contact about purchasing one or more digitals of these NY black&White photos for a project my company is working on? Please message me if this is possible, we are on a tight time line.
The pics we are interested in are Riverside Drive Viaduct, Pearl street 1942, and Lower Broadway 1899. Lots of Hats.
Please let me know asap.
Thanks
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