Cool vintage find. Todays drivers have nothing on them. Pedestrians took their lives into their own hands. Lol
There’s a series of youtube videos that cycles through old photographs. Usually accompanied by a short note about each. Light jazz plays in the background. Always the same two or three tunes in the same order.
It’s perhaps the most relaxing _and_ entertaining thing I’ve seen on the internet. I just wish they’d change up the tunes!
Whole lotta jaywalkin’ goin’on.
Then at the 2:03 mark, across from where the policeman is standing is the current location of Trump Tower on 57th street. He probably bought the clock and moved it (I'm assuming).
After viewing this video, it is clear why jay walking laws were passed.
All those cars were burning leaded gasoline.
There were intersections in Manhattan at which soil samples taken from around nearby trees tested as high in lead content as the floor of a lead smelter.
Studebaker, Packard, DeSoto, Ford, Chevy, Cord, Saw a Studebaker President, an incredibly rare car. Many prewar cars are incredibly rare. It’s due to the fact during the war, cars were driven until they were quite literally worn out due to a lack of civilian production. Those cars which were worn out didn’t sit around. They were immediately sent to scrap drives and recycled.
CC
bkmk
Thanks. Enjoyed the clip. Year I was born.
Note to self: Don’t time travel to 1940’s NY and try to drive. They’re crazy! and nobody has signal lights yet.
Thanks for the thread!
That was so cool.
Interesting that crosswalks weren’t in use.
Folks crossed streets anywhere they felt like.
Before the collapse.
Back when Fifth Avenue was a two-way street, as it was when I first moved to New York.
That church on the west side of the street might have still been there.
Someone’s suggestion when the streets were being changed to one-way: Make them all one way going north.
The video is fantastic. The audio track starts grating on me. The same car horn about every 30 seconds in rhythm. But the roads looks so clean. NYC drivers are still about the same, just so many more cars now.