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.
(Excerpt) Read more at youtu.be ...
A phenomenon I saw more in UK movies from the era, but occasionally in this film is guys walking like they have no heels on their shoes. While Chaplin’s hobo exaggerates it, it might not have been so much an exaggeration back then.
That might be a disabled civil war veteran on crutches from 0:49-1:04.
I think I will jump in when I see Joan Collins!
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Heck, I’d jump for Uhura...
Agree on both points. Thanks for posting this.
I also enjoyed another video there of really old photographs.
Thank you for that wealth of information.
In the only photograph I have of my maternal grandfather (b. 1872) he is wearing a boater.
If you check the video at Post #20, you’ll see that in 1896, the boater was new. Most men were still wearing bowler hats.
I met her a long ago DragonCon.
She was very pleasant to talk to.
We even discussed the then fairly recent Captain Zoom.
I also muted the music.
I was surprised to see that the cars had the steering wheel on the right side. Was that typical of cars in that era?
Thanks for that informative post.
If only NY could go back in time. By about a century :-)
Indeed.
Thank you. This is the year my paternal grandparents came from sicily on separate boats, through Ellis island, settled on Little Italy, and finally met in Switzer WV.
It wasn’t standardized yet. Cars were a very new thing and there were a lot of start up car companies all doing their own thing.
Bad idea. Tammany Hall ran the city in 1919. Over at the New York City Civil Service, Robert Moses was trying to reform operations, but the Tammany people ran rings around him. It wasn't until Gov. Al Smith took Moses under his wing and taught him how power operated in New York that he became effective.
The best time would have been after December 1933 when Republican candidate Fiorello La Guardia was inaugurated mayor. His first words after being sworn in were in Italian: "E finita la cucagna!" ("The free lunch is over!") La Guardia, with the able assistance of Thomas Dewey, Robert Moses and FDR, castrated Tammany and cleaned up the city.
LH drive didn’t become standardized until the Model T’s popularity grew. Some US manufacturers made RH drive cars into the ‘20s.
Nice to see that most everyone was well dressed and seemed to have a purpose in life.
No slackers or layabouts to be seen. (Although they were probably extant - a few streets over).
Okay, okay.....I like your suggested time period MUCH better. Thanks for another NY/NYC history lesson :-)
Also....were you born and/or raised in NY?
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