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The East River waterfront, 1906

Published 28 minutes ago by wildnewyork at Ephemeral New York

A bustling depiction of turn of the century Lower Manhattan, before skyscrapers. The Woolworth Building won’t be built for another seven years. Shipping is still the lifeblood of the city, and probably no one can imagine that South Street will be just a tourist attraction before the ...
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Vintage New York house numbers

Published 5 hours ago by wildnewyork at Ephemeral New York

These 19th century–looking numbers and letters on random buildings gives the city such an old-timey vibe. This terra cotta relief on East Ninth Street marks a particularly lovely apartment building: No. 1 Sylvan Terrace, in Harlem, has a very colonial feel: This walkup on ...
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Hubert’s: freaks and fleas in Times Square

Published 6 hours ago by wildnewyork at Ephemeral New York

Coney Island wasn’t the only place New Yorkers could go to ogle side-show exhibits. From 1925 to 1969, Hubert’s Museum in Times Square—next door to the Amsterdam Theater on West 42nd Street—housed freaks of all stripes. For 25 cents, you could catch a glimpse of Olga, the ...
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“Central Park Winter”

Published 4 days ago by wildnewyork at Ephemeral New York

Charles Parsons painted these ice skaters in 1862, during the park’s infancy. Ice skating was quite a fad among middle- and upper-class New Yorkers at the time. Even the little dog on the right is getting into it. Later this painting was made into a lithograph by Currier & ...
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Thanksgiving dinner inside the Tombs
ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com - 4 days ago
Thanksgiving dinner inside the Tombs
— ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com — On December 1, 1903, The New York Times ran a long article covering how city orphanages, missions,... hospitals, “Magdalen” asylums, and other charitable institutions celebrated the holiday. That almost always meant a big turkey dinner and ... (more) Thanksgiving dinner inside the Tombs

Comments vote down Bowery Boogie | A Lower East Side Chronicle found this 4 days agofound this
Building facades spared from the wrecking ball

Published 5 days ago by wildnewyork at Ephemeral New York

I guess the developer of this residential high-rise at 931 First Avenue and 51st Street deserves some praise. He could’ve just bulldozed the entire circa-1892 Romanesque revival elementary school building located on this corner. Instead, he kept the beautiful facade in place and ...
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The real first New York City subway
ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com - 6 days ago
The real first New York City subway
— ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com — It must have been a good idea in the 1860s. That’s when inventor Alfred Ely Beach decided... to construct an underground rail system powered by compressed air—kind of like those little pneumatic tubes that offices used to exchange memos in ... (more) The real first New York City subway

Comments vote down Bowery Boogie | A Lower East Side Chronicle found this 6 days agofound this
The rats of the Graybar Building

Published 7 days ago by wildnewyork at Ephemeral New York

New York City buildings are decorated with images of horses, goats, elephants, birds, even squirrels. But only on the Graybar Building, an office tower next to Grand Central Terminal, will you find rats. Yep, three cast-metal rats are depicted climbing above the building’s entrance ...
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What happened to a Bed-Stuy dress form factory?
ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com - 6 days ago
What happened to a Bed-Stuy dress form factory?
— ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com — The Ellanam Adjustable Form Company made a name for itself with its “adjustable” dress form—a three-dimensional headless,... limbless female mannequin used for sewing. The breakthrough adjustable model, heavily advertised to housewives in ... (more) What happened to a Bed-Stuy dress form factory?

Comments vote down Brownstoner found this 6 days agofound this
A snapshot of tenement life

Published 11 days ago by wildnewyork at Ephemeral New York

An unknown photographer captured this New York mother and her two babies in an old-law tenement apartment in 1916. Like most flats in old-law tenements (so named because they predate “new” turn-of-the-century laws mandating better living conditions per apartment), it’s ...
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When the city considered splitting from New York State
ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com - 11 days ago
When the city considered splitting from New York State
— ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com — Secession has been proposed several times over the years. In 1969, when writer Norman Mailer and columnist... Jimmy Breslin ran for mayor and city council president on the Independent Party ticket, one of their ideas was to make New York City the 51st ... (more) When the city considered splitting from New York State

Comments vote down Bowery Boogie | A Lower East Side Chronicle found this 11 days agofound this
The disappearing Hallmark stores
ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com - 10 days ago
The disappearing Hallmark stores
— ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com — These stationery stores, with their telltale throwback lettering, used to be in every neighborhood all over the... city. Where else could you pick up school supplies, Hello Kitty paraphernalia, and last-minute birthday cards? These days, their ... (more) The disappearing Hallmark stores

Comments vote down Jeremiah's Vanishing New York found this 10 days agofound this
Thanksgiving dinner at the Plaza Hotel, 1899
ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com - 13 days ago
Thanksgiving dinner at the Plaza Hotel, 1899
— ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com — From the two types of turtle soup to the to the turkey stuffed with chestnuts to the... 18 varieties of game offered, the Plaza’s Thanksgiving menu was clearly a feast for the well-to-do New Yorkers who could afford to dine there. Note the ... (more) Thanksgiving dinner at the Plaza Hotel, 1899

Comments vote down Serious Eats: New York found this 13 days agofound this
Strivers’ Row: a glimpse at genteel old Harlem

Published 14 days ago by wildnewyork at Ephemeral New York

“Walk Your Horses” say the inscriptions on the entry gates that lead to the alleys of Strivers’ Row, a two-block time capsule back into Harlem history. Like most of the neighborhood, these aristocratic townhouses, spanning 138th and 139th Streets between Frederick ...
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The NYPD’s “Clubber” Williams feasts on Tenderloin

Published 14 days ago by wildnewyork at Ephemeral New York

Alexander “Clubber” Williams was an NYPD inspector in post–Civil War New York City; as captain of the precinct on 35th Street, he’s credited with breaking up the fearsome Gas House Gang that lorded over the East 30s, then known as the Gas House District. In 1876 he was ...
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Turn of the century Cooper Square
ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com - 17 days ago
Turn of the century Cooper Square
— ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com — A web of elevated train tracks is flanked by sloped-roof buildings on the right and lovely Cooper... Union—described in this postcard as “the Cooper Institute”—on the left. Looks like some really sweet buildings have long since ... (more) Turn of the century Cooper Square
Comments vote down Bowery Boogie | A Lower East Side Chronicle found this 17 days agofound this
The “Tree of Hope” of the Harlem Renaissance
ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com - 17 days ago
The “Tree of Hope” of the Harlem Renaissance
— ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com — During the 1920s and 1930s, Seventh Avenue in the 130s was nicknamed the Boulevard of Dreams, a... stretch of Harlem lined with top theaters and clubs such as the Lafayette Theater and Connie’s Inn. Between these venues was a lone elm tree ... (more) The “Tree of Hope” of the Harlem Renaissance

Comments vote down City Room found this 17 days agofound this
Winged chariots and lions on West 30th Street

Published 18 days ago by wildnewyork at Ephemeral New York

Not too many Manhattan buildings feature terra cotta panels and friezes inspired by ancient Assyrian art. Then there’s 130 West 30th Street. Constructed in 1927 as the SJM building (that’s for Solomon Manne, who made a fortune in the fur business), it was renamed in 2003 ...
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Walkin’ about Wallabout
ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com - 17 days ago
Walkin’ about Wallabout
— ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com — Wallabout is either a dressed-up name for the gritty area that butts up against the Brooklyn Navy... Yard and is sliced by the BQE. Or it’s a true neighborhood with its own vibe distinct from Fort Greene and Clinton Hill to the north.  ... (more) Walkin’ about Wallabout

Comments vote down The Bowery Boys: New York City History found this 17 days agofound this
1980s tabloid fodder: the Mayflower Madam

Published 20 days ago by wildnewyork at Ephemeral New York

Back in the early 1979, 28-year-old Sydney Biddle Barrows decided that her fashion industry career wasn’t cutting it. So the blue blood descendent (a Pilgrim ancestor came over on the Mayflower) embarked on a more lucrative career path: she started an escort service. The story ...
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