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Posted on 04/30/2019 3:34:35 PM PDT by NRx
Rare Footage of New York City in 1911 shows everyday life in New York City over 100 years ago. The film features famous landmarks like the Statue of Liberty and the Flatiron Building, and showcases what life on New York streets looked like. The early 1900s were a period of rapid change for New York City. The city's population was ballooning as an influx of immigrants passed through Ellis Island. Massive skyscrapers began popping up seemingly overnight, many of them among the tallest in the world at the time. And new technology such as automobiles and elevated trains made the city more accessible than ever. In 1911, Swedish company Svenska Biografteatern produced a nine-minute film showing everyday life in Manhattan. The remarkably clear footage, released by the Museum of Modern Art last year, includes recognizable modern-day landmarks like the Flatiron Building and the Statue of Liberty, as well as buildings that no longer exist, such as the New York Herald Building. "Produced only three years before the outbreak of World War I, the everyday life of the city recorded here — street traffic, people going about their business — has a casual, almost pastoral quality," the museum wrote. The film shows a boat arriving at New York Harbor with the Statue of Liberty in the distance. The harbor is still used by cruise lines, commuter ferries, and tourist boats. And the Statue of Liberty is as popular a tourist destination as ever. The Flatiron Building, completed in 1902, was one of the tallest buildings in the world when it was built. Today, the Flatiron Building isn't among the tallest 1,000 buildings in New York City. But its distinct appearance has made it one of the most popular and photographed landmarks in the Big Apple.
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Muting helps that immensely.
Wow.
So funny, I muted it as well.
But very interesting to watch. Wish I could’ve seen that for real. Everyone clean, looks like they’re employed, respectable and law abiding.
Gee. Not the NY of nowadays.
Comrades Wilhelm and AOC will have those films destroyed if they get the chance.
Incredible (re-mastered) video quality. Here is a similar one of San Francisco, 1906:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Q5Nur642BU
The streetcars used a conduit to access DC electricity because of opposition to stringing wires. La Guardia put an end to these streetcars because he thought they were noise, dirty and smelly.
The traffic light had not yet been invented. Every intersection of importance had a cop directing traffic.
The elevated railroad is the 3rd Avenue line, torn down in 1958. The wooden cars that serviced that line went to the east side of San Francisco Bay during World War II to provide trolley service to the shipyards. The lines were installed for the war effort and torn up right after VJ Day.
The Brooklyn Bridge had streetcar service leading to an underground terminal on the Manhattan side of the bridge. Note that the Brooklyn trolleys used catenary wire, not conduit.
Before the Hudson River tunnels were built, the railroads operated their own private navies to ferry people from Jersey City and Hoboken to downtown Manhattan. By 1966 the last railroad-operated ferry disappeared.
Despite the Brooklyn, Williamsburg and Manhattan Bridges being in service and rail lines going under the river, there was still East River ferry service in 1911.
Nootice the piles of horse poop in the streets? Imagine the smells wafting from a hot August street filled with manure for 24 days.
And no air conditioning. Windows open to the flies, rats, and smell.
Get a load of those flat top hats. Almost all the men and women wore hats and suit jackets for men and long dresses for women. Looks like they got along just fine without traffic lights.
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The hats were called “straw boaters.”
We happen to be one of the earliest generations able to see images from the past. What that means in terms of social interaction has yet to be fathomed. Who cannot marvel at NYC, despite all the leftist garbage produced and imbibed there?
Observation: Very few overweight folks.
Observation: Virtually no one casually dressed. Not even street vendors.
Check out the right-hand-drive steering wheels on the cars.
Everybody walked in those days. And because they didn’t have enclosed interiors in those days, autos were stored in the wintertime
At that time, the War between the States was only as distant as Vietnam was today.
If they had a greater distance to travel, they took a streetcar, subway or el.
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