Street View New York 1982
June 11, 2011 6:48 AM Subscribe
Street View New York 1982. Black and white photographs of New York City streets [ a work in progress] | Street View 1982 Storefronts NYC. Created by Dan Weeks.
Ah, yes! I have fond memories of the tiny little Soup Burg restaurants, as seen in this photo. Nice to travel back in time to an older New York, pre-Bed, Bath and Beyond, etc.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:02 AM on June 11, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:02 AM on June 11, 2011 [1 favorite]
Oh, and I love the seam points, like the askew window above the dry cleaners (yes, bwg, the ubiquitous dry cleaners!) in that same shot I linked above.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:03 AM on June 11, 2011
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:03 AM on June 11, 2011
I've had soup in that Soup Burg place shown there.
posted by StickyCarpet at 7:07 AM on June 11, 2011
posted by StickyCarpet at 7:07 AM on June 11, 2011
My favorite is the Society Foremost Liquor store.
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 7:07 AM on June 11, 2011
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 7:07 AM on June 11, 2011
These are great, but it feels weird being nostalgic for something so recent. When I clicked on the link I thought it was steetviews from EIGHTEEN ninety-two. I was disappointed at first, but ended up really digging these. I'm trying to figure out what my cutoff point would be. Would I be as excited for pictures of storefronts from 2002? I doubt it, but I didn't think I'd be so into looking at pictures less than 20 years ago, so who knows. Maybe I'm overthinking the increasing smaller nostalgia window because I just ordered Simon Reynolds' new book RETROMANIA: Pop Culture's Addiction To Its Own Past.
posted by Slack-a-gogo at 7:22 AM on June 11, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by Slack-a-gogo at 7:22 AM on June 11, 2011 [1 favorite]
1982. Does it strike anyone else that these were taken nearly 30 years ago?
Damn, I'm getting old.
posted by bwg at 7:24 AM on June 11, 2011 [1 favorite]
Damn, I'm getting old.
posted by bwg at 7:24 AM on June 11, 2011 [1 favorite]
Homeowners in NYC (or anyone else, I guess) can order from the Buildings Dept. copies of the pictures WPA photographers took of every lot in the city during the depression. It was interesting to see how much the facade of our house had changed. I hope one day they will all be digitized and available to anyone!
posted by rikschell at 7:29 AM on June 11, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by rikschell at 7:29 AM on June 11, 2011 [1 favorite]
Some of these pictures are clearly of the early 80's, but a some, like this one, look like they could come from the sixties, seventies, or eighties.
You're right bwg - 30 years. I added 10 years to the date in my comment.
posted by Slack-a-gogo at 7:32 AM on June 11, 2011
You're right bwg - 30 years. I added 10 years to the date in my comment.
posted by Slack-a-gogo at 7:32 AM on June 11, 2011
Piles of garbage bags on the pavement! It never goes out of style.
posted by dabitch at 7:51 AM on June 11, 2011
posted by dabitch at 7:51 AM on June 11, 2011
I look forward to the day when Google Street View has a "Year" Slider.
Although even as it is, my toddler nieces and nephews will always have the option to take a virtual stroll around the city they grew up in, before they were born.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:55 AM on June 11, 2011 [3 favorites]
Although even as it is, my toddler nieces and nephews will always have the option to take a virtual stroll around the city they grew up in, before they were born.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:55 AM on June 11, 2011 [3 favorites]
So who doesn't want to do this? You're riding along on the bus, up Broadway or Madison Avenue, and you're staring out at the parade of storefronts -- and it strikes you that they're all so eloquent of their time and place, so individual, like faces, with character, and each is the snapshot of a dream, someone's passion to own a business (or launder money), and that they all seem so established, but that nothing is more ephemeral than a business in NYC, and you think to yourself, wouldn't it be great to shoot a big, long mural-like photograph of this panorama that unrolls before my eyes, day after day, as I ride this bus, because 100 years from now, every detail of this street, all the doorknobs and fireplugs and "open" signs are going to see utterly foreign and perfectly fascinating to anyone who has the opportunity to study them in detail, and don't you wish you had something similar from 40, 50 and 100 years ago yourself? And this guy did it, for some streets that I was pretty familiar with in those self-same years. Thanks, buddy.
posted by Faze at 9:16 AM on June 11, 2011 [2 favorites]
posted by Faze at 9:16 AM on June 11, 2011 [2 favorites]
SOUP BURG!
Man, someone (not me) should take all the consecutive streets and stitch them together into a massive panorama so I can run it around my house like a dorkily nostalgic baseboard/wainscoting.
posted by elizardbits at 9:21 AM on June 11, 2011 [2 favorites]
Man, someone (not me) should take all the consecutive streets and stitch them together into a massive panorama so I can run it around my house like a dorkily nostalgic baseboard/wainscoting.
posted by elizardbits at 9:21 AM on June 11, 2011 [2 favorites]
I was once going to make an extremely large panograph of one side of 34th St in it's entirety when I lived close by.
But working with something that large on a system with "only" 8GB of ram proved unfeasible.
posted by Threeway Handshake at 9:48 AM on June 11, 2011
But working with something that large on a system with "only" 8GB of ram proved unfeasible.
posted by Threeway Handshake at 9:48 AM on June 11, 2011
My past now looks like The Past.
posted by oneironaut at 9:50 AM on June 11, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by oneironaut at 9:50 AM on June 11, 2011 [1 favorite]
I love how the stitching makes the sidewalks look like German Expressionist set dec.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:56 AM on June 11, 2011
posted by Sys Rq at 9:56 AM on June 11, 2011
Oh Manny Hanny, how we miss you!
Funny how much of a NYC neighbourhood is localised, or maybe that's just when you're a kid. In 1982, I lived on 96th and West End Avenue, and went to school on 81st and West End Avenue. I pretty much thought I was the queen of New York; I roamed Manhattan from 72nd to 112th on Riverside, West End and Broadway. I also had a really deep familiarity where my various parents lived and/or worked, namely Columbus Circle and Greenwhich Village. But even though I could draw Broadway in 1982 from memory for you, those Columbus Avenue is not at all familiar to me. Those streetscapes ring not a single bell for me. Weird.
posted by DarlingBri at 12:09 PM on June 11, 2011
Funny how much of a NYC neighbourhood is localised, or maybe that's just when you're a kid. In 1982, I lived on 96th and West End Avenue, and went to school on 81st and West End Avenue. I pretty much thought I was the queen of New York; I roamed Manhattan from 72nd to 112th on Riverside, West End and Broadway. I also had a really deep familiarity where my various parents lived and/or worked, namely Columbus Circle and Greenwhich Village. But even though I could draw Broadway in 1982 from memory for you, those Columbus Avenue is not at all familiar to me. Those streetscapes ring not a single bell for me. Weird.
posted by DarlingBri at 12:09 PM on June 11, 2011
Aww man, bandwidth exceeded.
posted by Ad hominem at 1:06 PM on June 11, 2011
posted by Ad hominem at 1:06 PM on June 11, 2011
Those streetscapes ring not a single bell for me. Weird.
Not so much for me either, but the most striking thing was how easily I could tell east side from west side (it took me a good 20-25 pix to realize that the streets were listed in the file names).
posted by elizardbits at 5:08 PM on June 11, 2011
Not so much for me either, but the most striking thing was how easily I could tell east side from west side (it took me a good 20-25 pix to realize that the streets were listed in the file names).
posted by elizardbits at 5:08 PM on June 11, 2011
These really are great, and they do indeed ring more than a few bells for me, since I did spend a good deal of time around midtown during much of my 11 years in NY, BUT... I sure do wish the photographer had documented blocks in the Village, the East Village, Chinatown, Little Italy, SoHo and TriBeCa, which were my real stomping grounds from '84 to '95. That'd be super sweet.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:04 PM on June 11, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:04 PM on June 11, 2011 [1 favorite]
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posted by bwg at 7:00 AM on June 11, 2011