More old photos: from Newark Airport in 2019, looking northeast (on the left) and east (on the right): A close-up on the horizon: The cluster of building on the right is lower Manhattan, with One World Trade Center as the tallest tower. The cluster on the left is midtown, with the Empire State Building to [ ]
Fireworks over the East River as seen from Battery Park City: Tastes vary, but I find this more interesting than fireworks up in a clear sky.
Circa 1910, a postcard of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine on Morningside Heights: There s only one problem: that s not what the cathedral looked like then or looks like now. The biggest difference is that the crossing tower was never started. There s a Guastavino dome at the crossing serving as a temporary roof built 123 [ ]
From 2018, a nasty surprise after the ceiling was removed: More specifically, the gypsum board ceiling that had been put in place below the original plaster was removed, exposing the plaster, and the failure of the plaster, and the failure of the bottom of the cinder-concrete slab, and the failure of much of the wire-mesh [ ]
I let this series languish for a while The stoop of an 1825 rowhouse, with a simple wrought-iron handrail: The newel post is, of course, cast iron, but the rest of the rail is wrought iron. If you look carefully at the stone steps, you can see that the part of each step from the [ ]
More evident alterations at an old subway station, similar to one I discussed a couple of years ago. A view of the westbound-platform roof at the Kosciuszko Street station on the J train: There s a lot going, only some of which is germane. The line is three tracks here, with the express running in the [ ]
Max Hubacher, on December 21, 1954, titled this photo New York City: Third Avenue Elevated : And, sure enough, there s the el over Third Avenue on the right. The small park being enjoyed only by pigeons is Cooper Square, where (if you are heading south to north) the Bowery splits into Third Avenue (on its proper [ ]
The valley of ashes as portrayed in a graphic-novel adaptation of The Great Gatsby: A pile of coal ash in the dump created in the swamp adjacent to the Flushing River, circa 1920: The site was drained and cleaned up for the 1939-40 World s Fair, and has been the Flushing Meadows-Corona Park ever since. The [ ]
In the foreground, the rear facade of the Seventh Regiment Armory, famous for its ornate rooms in front, some designed by a young Louis Tiffany, but also containing a huge arched-truss drill hall that stretched the long-span roof technology of the US in 1880. In the background, 432 Park Avenue, the first of the Billionaire s [ ]
From 1922 1940 (according to the New York Public Library) a postcard of Bryant Park in 1853 : Except, of course, it wasn t Bryant Park then (a) because it wasn t a park, just vacant land behind the big distribution reservoir located where the NYPL is now and (b) William Cullen Bryant was, in 1853, a [ ]