TheAgitator.com
Manhattan in the ’40′s.
Tuesday, July 12th, 2011More great photos here.
MORE: Several commenters have noted that some of the photos were taken as late as the 1960s.
23 Responses to “Manhattan in the ’40′s.”
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That’s a 57 Plymouth in the picture.
Same street and address today:
http://chucktaylorblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/nyc-vintage-image-of-day-whitehall_25.html
Many more of his photos are available from IU’s website.
http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/cushman/
Wait I thought the 1940s were in black and white!
Battery bums dressed better in ’41.
My father had one just like that… Amazing memories…
Steve Verdon, Kodachrome film was around back then–it was introduced in 1935. A great film with a distinctive look that was in production up until last year. It lasts indefinitely, so there’s actually a fair amount of Kodachrome shots around from the 40s.
Ken,
I was being facetious given how most photos are black and white as are most movies…ergo the 1940s were black and white (IRL).
Wow! They had time travel back then? Because that’s a late-50′s model year car in the picture. i think it is a plymouth fury, but I’m not 100% sure. What I am sure of is that it is not, repeat, NOT a 1940s model year anything. These pics were probably taken in the late 50′s or early 60′s, or at least that one was.
We’ve been through this before:
Back before the mid-’30s, the world was black and white back. Those old “black and white” photos that you see are actually color photos of a black and white world. Everything else turned color – pretty much totally by the mid-’70s. The old pics you see still look black and white because they were already color photos of a black and white world.
If you follow the link, it says that the photo posted here is from 1960. A bad choice of headlines by Balko…
The linked site has a bunch of (properly dated) 1960 shots, of which the picture above is one.
New York in the 1940′s looks pretty run down, worse than Philly today.
It’s weird seeing some of the places that are part of my commute (I walk through Bowling Green/Wall St. area every day) and how parts of it have changed very little, and how parts are completely different.
As a side note, Radley, your bio on HuffPo is already outdated — Cory Maye no longer has “a new trial, due to take place later this year.” :) Once again, congrats on Cory.
Those are wonderful pictures, thanks for linking to them. A number of things stand out, among them that even bums wore hats and jackets in the 40′s, and there were horse-drawn wagons doing real work.
If you follow the link, you see the headline is not Balko’s:
“VINTAGE PHOTOS: Take A Tour Of Manhattan In The 1940s”
Are we sure those guys are “bums” in the picture? Might simply be an inaccurate caption.
Love the shot of McSorely’s. The last time I was in that place, there was still a pair of handcuffs attached to the footrail, allegedly escaped from by Harry Houdini.
Since my hobby is photography, I go on photo expeditions quite often. I think it’s a cruel joke that we are permitted to travel in space, but not in time.
But, while I think it would be great to travel back in time, there is no fucking way in hell I would want to permanently relocate to an earlier point in history.
Someday, decades from now, people will look at pictures of New York as we know it now and feel the same emotions we feel looking at these pictures from the 40s. To future generations, this is “the olden days”.
If you follow the link, it says that the photo posted here is from 1960. A bad choice of headlines by Balko…
If you follow the link, you see the headline is not Balko’s:
“VINTAGE PHOTOS: Take A Tour Of Manhattan In The 1940s”
If you follow the link, you will see that Balko’s headline (“Manhattan in the ’40′s.”) is NOT the one KBCraig quotes from the site.
The photo in question is NOT from the 40′s; it is from the ’60′s, and if you follow the link, you can CLEARLY see that.
“VINTAGE PHOTOS: Take A Tour Of Manhattan In The 1940s” and
“Manhattan in the ’40′s.” are both misleading headlines – the site has a number of photos that are NOT from the 1940′s . The auto that Balko posted is CLEARLY NOT FROM THE 1940′s. None of which KBGraig understands.
Billy, last time I was at McSorley’s, I was 17 and underage and me and my buddies were pounding beer after beer, then puking on the sidewalk outside. Ah, the good ol’ days.
Am I the only one who was scanning the photos for my relatives? My parents were born and raised on the Lower East Side in the 1930s and 1940s. Jewish too, and quite a few photos were from that part of town.
Dave, the trick to time travel is a vivid memory, Vonnegut’s contribution to literature.
Uh-oh. I’m screwed, then.