Olden NYC

Genesis of a icon: In this 5 June 1908 photo, the Manhattan Bridge is less than a shell, seen from Washington Street. It wouldn't be opened for another 18 months and wouldn't be completed for another 4 years.

exactly same place in the 1970s... only 70 years later. 

New York City in 1895.

Subway car on 6th Avenue Elevated railroad train southbound at 34th St.-Herald Square station during the strike at the New York Railway Company in September 1916.

on top of The New York Times building on a Sunday in 1940.

Saint Anthony's faithful attend 1942 Christmas Midnight Mass. 

up in Saint Anthony's balcony on 1942 Chritmas Eve.

St. Anthony of Padua's Church (built in 1866) on Sullivan corner Houston  on Xmas eve 1942.

Moment in history: the newspaper headline in this 18 May 1940 photo reads: 'Nazi Army Now 75 Miles From Paris.' It shows the corner of Sixth Avenue and 40th Street in Manhattan.

The Third Avenue elevated train rumbles across lower Manhattan. City Hall can be seen in the background.

Hester Street in 1898. 

Hester Street in 1903 (5 years later).

Workers dig in Delancy Street on New York's Lower East Side on 29 July 1908.

Mulberry Street circa 1900.

The Great Bambino: on 30 September 1936, a man hands a program to baseball legend Babe Ruth, center, as he is joined by his 2nd wife Clare, center left, and singer Kate Smith, front left, in the grandstand during Game One of the 1936 World Series at the Polo Grounds in New York.

Mercury Streamliner, 1936.

Plaza Hotel on 5th Avenue & 54th Steet in 1905.

Singer Building aka Singer Tower on Broadway corner Liberty Street; with a height of 187 meters it was the tallest building in the world from 1908 to 1909, when it was surpassed by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower. Despite being regarded as a city icon, the Singer Building was razed between 1967 and 1969 to make way for One Liberty Plaza

LZ 129 Hinderburg over Manhattan in May 1937. The Hinderburg exploded on May 6, as it attempted to dock at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station in southern New Jersey. 36 people died - 13 passengers, 22 crew members and one person working on the ground - in what became known as the Hindenburg Disaster. Here the Hinderburg sails over Brooklyn before heading south to its horrible fate in N.J.

Lüchow's was a restaurant at 110 East 14th Street at Irving Place in East Village (near Union Square). It was established in 1882 – at a time when the surrounding neighborhood was primarily residential – when a German immigrant, August Guido Lüchow, purchased the cafe where he worked as a bartender and waiter. Lüchow's becoming a favorite establishment for people in the entertainment world, helped by its proximity to the Academy of Music, the city's opera house, as well as Steinway Hall and Tammany Hall. This photo was taken some time in the fall of 1938, as MGM's 'Port of Seven Seas' was released on 1st July 1938.

Celebrities in NYC & Newark

Fifth Avenue & 53rd St. subway station.

Simon & Garfunkel at 5th Ave. 53rd St subway station in 1964.

Yoko & John in Manhattan.

Danny Seymour with his Arriflex and John Lennon, photographed at Danny Seymour's loft, Bowery between Prince Street and Spring, 1970.

John, Paul & Ringo in Central Park in early 1964. 

Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys signs autographs for fans in the summer of 1964; Ruben Iglesias writes:  The view is to the west towards Broadway & 53rd Street, with Studio 50 (soon to become The Ed Sullivan Theater) out of sight behind the Blarney Stone building on the right. Brian, most likely, was heading back to the Americana Hotel on Seventh Avenue where he and the band were staying.

The Ronettes in front of CBS's theatre on Broadway for a special of Murry the K's in 1965.

Johnny Carson steps out of a limousine at 30 Rockefellar Center on 47th Street in 1967.

George Preppard & Audrey Hepburn walking the streets of Manhattan in 1961.

Miss Hepburn at the Automat ten years earlier, in 1951. 

Grace Kelly on 42nd Street between First and Second Avenue: 332 E 42nd St. 1950.

Gregory Peck in Life magazine, May 1947. Photo probably taken from the Williamsburg Bridge with Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridge in background.

Sophia Loren & husband Carlo Ponti next to Pennsylvania Station on 9 June 1958.

Donna Reed on Broadway, in 1959. 

Jackie O. photographed after watching Visconti's 'Death in Venice' at the Hollywood Twins on 8th Avenue & 47th Street, in the summer of 1971.

Presidential nomenee John & wife Jacqueline Kennedy ticker parade on Broadway in 1960.  

Janis Joplin next to Hotel Chelsea on 46 West 17th Street in 1969.

Janis photographed by David Gahr in 1969 on 17th Street.

Sergio Mendes & Antonio Carlos Jobim walking down W 43rd Street next to 8th Avenue in Manhattan, in November 1962. They probably were staying at the Hotel Hanover, a cheap hotel where musicians lived and it is said Woodie Guthrie wrote 'This land is your land' in the 1930s. See the Hotel Diplomat across the street on the left. 

Hanover Hotel on W 43rd Street corner with 8th Avenue in 1952. 

Sergio Mendes, Antonio Carlos Jobim & and a plethora of Brazilian Bossa Nova musicians played a concert at the Carnegie Hall on 21st November 1962... this must be the 'day after'...

Carmelo Gamiddo wrote:  They are walking on W 43rd Street, towards 6th Avenue and that’s the old Hanover Hotel which no longer exists. It was here where Woody Guthrie wrote his best known song, 'This Land is Your Land'.

Laura Liller Kracht said: Hanover Hotel on 43rd Street and 6th Avenue was a cheap hotel where musicians lived. 'This Land is Your Land' was written there.

Neil Gleit says: W 43rd Str. between 6th and 7th, looking west.

Barry Huff on FB: I remember when the Hotel Diplomat held concerts and rock conventions in the 70s/early 80s.

Miucha & João Gilberto in Weehawken, N.J.  in the 1970s having Manhattan in the back.

B.J.Thomas, born in Oklahoma, in a 1969 NYC.

Johnny Mathis in Manhattan in 1969.

Lloyd Price on stage at Apollo Theater in Harlem, in the 1960s. 

Caterina Valente in the late 1950s.

MM on the balcony of the Ambassador Hotel in 1955.

MM in NYC.

in the subway, in 1955. 

Douglas Fairbanks holds up Charlie Chaplin who's selling War Bonds in 1918 in lower Manhattan.

A king in New York... Chaplin at the Wall Street rally in 1918 held up by Fairbanks.

IRT 2, New York City, 1980. Danny Lyon: 'Going from New Mexico to the Lower East Side Manhattan was like going from heaven to hell'.

Philip Roth in Newark, N.J. in the early 1970s.

Debbie Harry aka Blondie on the 14th Street subway station platform in 1973.

David Bowie visits Rod Stewart backstage at the Madison Square Garden on 24th February 1975.

Rep. Bella Abzug takes part in a rally for peace at the UN headquaters on 27 May 1978.