How times have changed in New York City! Extraordinary colour photographs reveal 1940s life....

Daily Mail (UK) ^ | 13th September 2011 | Mark Duell

[Rome2000]

The sawdust on the floor I still can't figure out the reason for.

So people could spit tobacco ?

[Baynative]

"If I had a time machine I'd get into it. I not sure I'd set it for NYC 1941-2, but I'd go back to pre 1960 somewhere."

Without a second thought, or a second to think about it; I'd go back to where I grew up on the California coast in the 60's.

[buccaneer81]

Amazing snapshots of a lost world.

Thankfully some things have remained...Budweiser and hot dog carts.

[Disambiguator]

Some of the commenters on the site say NYC remained the same up until the late 1960’s

Guess what happened in the mid-1960s? Hint: Lyndon Johnson and his magic legislation.

[Siena Dreaming]

Coca-Cola signs haven't changed.

We were in McSorley's just last year.

[supremedoctrine]

So many of these were just before Pearl Harbor.
There was nothing like Kodachrome, as everyone now knows.
Want to check out one of the great photographers of NYC
life check out Helen Levitt.

[dfwgator]

They got an old-fashioned toilet.

[Roccus]

...and hats. A man wasn’t considered “dressed” without a hat.

[Chode]

prolly that and it makes all manner of other stuff easier to clean up too

[Rome2000]

I remember NYC subway cars with straw back seats and Chiclet machines on the platforms.

No graffiti either.

Also remember hanging out in neighborhoods in NYC where the stores didn't have riot gates up until the mid '70's, in that era there were still soda counters at drugstores and pizza cost 35 cents a slice.

Then came the CPUSA and the domestic marxists.

Their offspring are running DC now.

[liberalh8ter]

Actually, there really wasn't a poorly dressed person in all the photos. I sure do wish we could be like that today. Instead, we have this:

[Skooz]

bfl

[buccaneer81]

Like so many other large cities, the turning point was 1965:

1965

Watts riots.

Ted Kennedy's third world immigration legislation passed.

Great Society programs passed.

[lowbridge]

Bump

[nodumbblonde]

I always feel like I was born in the wrong time... *sigh*

[cripplecreek]

Thank you ever so much. /s

[rabidralph]

Set it for 1957 and get a couple Chevys and wait around for the Shelby Cobras :-)

[Siena Dreaming]

Too bad there's none of mid-town.

I'd love to see some photos of Central Park, Rockefeller Center area, etc.

[liberalh8ter]

LOL! Anytime ; p

[YankeeReb]

Some of the commenters on the site say NYC remained the same up until the late 1960’s. Can anyone with a knowledge of the city say if that is true?

If so it must have been a huge and very sudden change to go from this to the ghastly place which was the site of so many grim TV cop shows and movies in the mid 1970’s.

I suspect the transformation must have taken longer than that.

I don't remember NYC much before the mid 70s, but I remember it being pretty bad then. If it's true that the city was like the pictures up until the early 60s, it would seem that LBJ and the Great Society had something to do with the down hill spiral.