March 2009
New Brooklyn to New York via Brooklyn Bridge - 1899
Sept. 22, 1899. Edison Manufacturing Co.
The train ride from Brooklyn to Manhattan. In 1898, the modern City of New York was formed with the consolidation of Brooklyn (until then an independent city), Manhattan and outlying areas.
New York City in 1899: The newly formed 'City of Greater New York' splits Queens County, Hempstead, North Hempstead, and Oyster Bay from Nassau County / Sept. 9th, Henry H. Bliss steps off of a streetcar at 74th St. & Central Park West and gets struck by a vehicle becoming New York City's first automobile fatality / Dec. 2nd, trolleys begin running between Jamaica and Flushing in Queens
Recommended reading:
The Subway and the City - Stan Fischler
The Great East River Bridge 1883-1983 - The Brooklyn Museum
Panorama from the Tower of the Brooklyn Bridge - 1899
Photographed April 18, 1899. American Mutoscope & Biograph Co.
This view of Lower Manhattan was taken from the tower on the Brooklyn side of the bridge. Some visible landmarks include the Fulton Fish Market buildings at Fulton and South Streets (currently the site of the South Street Seaport Museum), north of the bridge tower is the Catherine Slip, where a Catherine Street Ferry is docked.
New York City in 1899: Demolition of the reservoir at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street begun, to make way for the new library / Automobiles were banned from Central Park "because they might frighten horses and otherwise be a disfigurement or annoyance." - Times, June 29 / Newsboys ('newsies') begin a two week strike on July 20 forcing Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst to abandon raising wholesale prices of their newspapers / Brooklyn "Superbas" won the National League pennant / 33-story 391 ft. Park Row Building is the tallest skyscraper in the world / The Bronx Zoo opens on November 8 / Trolleys begin running on Broadway December 16th
Recommended reading:
The Great Bridge / The epic story of the building of the Brooklyn Bridge
- David McCullough
A picture History of the Brooklyn Bridge
- Mary J. Shapiro
Panorama Water Front and Brooklyn Bridge from East River - 1903
May 9, 1903 Edison Manufacturing Co.
This film depicts a panoramic view facing west of the East River shoreline and the piers of lower Manhattan starting at about Pier 5 (the New York Central Pier) opposite Broad Street, and extending north to the Mallory Line steamship piers just south of Fulton Street and the Brooklyn Bridge.
NOTE: This film viewed along with "Skyscrapers of New York City, from the North River" constitutes a complete sweep around the southern tip of Manhattan.
Recommended reading:
Picturing the City / Urban Vision and the Ashcan School
- Rebecca Zurier
New York Sights / Visualizing Old and New New York
- Douglas Tallack (This book discusses some of the actualities posted in this collection.)
Skyscrapers of New York City, from the North River - 1903
1903 Edison Manufacturing Co.
Filmed from a boat moving down river, the film depicts the Hudson (i.e., North River) shoreline and the piers of lower Manhattan beginning around Fulton Street and extending south to Castle Garden in the Battery, once a fort and then an immigrant station, but at the time of this filming it was the City Aquarium. The film ends with a view of Battery Park. This film is a portrait of the city in transition. Between 1900 and 1930, the skyline would grow steadily into the uniquely familiar silhouette of downtown and midtown New York skyscrapers
NOTE: This film viewed along with "Panorama Water Front and Brooklyn Bridge from East River" constitutes a complete sweep around the southern tip of Manhattan from Fulton Street on the west side to the Brooklyn Bridge on the East River.
Recommended reading:
Rise of the New York Skyscraper 1865-1913
- Sarah Bradford Landau and Carl L. Condit
A Maritime History of New York / New York City WPA Writers' Project - Going Coastal, Inc.
Lower Broadway - 1902
Photographed May 15, 1902. American Mutoscope and Biograph Co.
Camera: Robert K. Bonine
The film shows a view which appears to be looking north on Broadway at the intersection of Wall Street, in front of Trinity Church (its also possible this may be near St. Pauls further north). Note the passing horse drawn streetcar appearing at 1:10. Public transportation for "Courtland and Fulton Street Ferry," the fare for public transportation was 5¢.
New York City in 1902: The first electric train ran over the Second Avenue elevated on Jan. 9th / Daniel Burnham's Flatiron Building on 23rd St. was completed, the tallest building north of the financial district / The Algonquin Hotel on West 44th Street opened, future home of the fabled 'Algonquin Round Table' / Macy's moved from 14th St. and Sixth Ave. to 34th St. & Broadway in Herald Square / Charles Francis Murphy succeeds Richard Croker as Tammany Hall leader / William Sidney Porter arrives in NYC becoming known as O. Henry / July 25th in San Francisco: Jeffries KOd Fitzsimmons in the 8th round
Move On - 1903
Photographed October 22, 1903. Thomas A. Edison, Inc.
Camera: Alfred C. Abadie
Lower East Side food cart street vendors are told to move along by the law. The elevated train nearby places this scene somewhere in or near the Bowery and Second Avenue.
Text from a contemporary Edison film company catalog:
MOVE ON. In certain sections of New York City large numbers of Jewish and Italian push-cart vendors congregate so closely along the sidewalks that they interfere with traffic. Policemen keep them moving. The picture shows how the frightened peddlers hurry away when a bluecoat appears. Some of the carts are piled high with fruits of all kinds, and it is interesting and amusing to see the expressions of combined fear and anxiety on the faces of the men as they hurry away; the fear of being arrested if they stand, and of losing some of their wares if the carts strike an obstruction in the street.
The United States in 1903: January 2nd President Theodore Roosevelt shuts down post office in Indianola Miss., for refusing to accept its appointed postmistress because she was black / Jan. 9th Two New Yorkers buy the Baltimore baseball franchise for $18,000 and moved it to NY / Aug. 1st, first coast-to-coast automobile trip (SF-NY) completed / Aug. 17th, Joseph Pulitzer donates $1 million to Columbia University and begins Pulitzer Prizes / Dec. 1st, "The Great Train Robbery," the first Western film is released / Dec. 13th, New Jersey resident Italo Marcioni patents the ice cream cone
Recommended reading:
New York City Cartmen, 1667-1850
- Graham Russell Hodges
Recollections of An Old Cartman
- Isaac S. Lyon (1872)
New York City ''Ghetto'' Fish Market - 1903
Photographed May 1, 1903. Thomas A. Edison, Inc.
Camera: James Blair Smith
This is the Lower East Side, believed to be either on or near Hester Street. At the turn of the century, this area was the center of commerce for New York's Jewish ghetto. The large ghetto population lived in overcrowded conditions south of Houston Street and east of the Bowery. It was predominantly Russian at this time, but also included immigrants from Austria, Germany, Rumania and Turkey.
According to a description in a 1901 newspaper, an estimated 1,500 pushcart peddlers were licensed to sell wares (primarily fish) in the vicinity of Hester Street. At one point the camera seems to follow three official looking men (one in a uniform) as they walk among the crowd. They may be New York City health inspectors, who apparently monitored the fish vendors closely.
Today, both Hester Street and the surrounding neighborhood still cater to bargain retail, though the vending is primarily conducted out of small store fronts. Real estate speculation and gentrification has endangered the culture of small business and cultural diversity that has always been the local characteristic of the Lowe East Side. This is one of the last areas of Manhattan, along with Chinatown and some parts of Harlem, that has maintained original functioning architecture (business and residential) and social patterns that directly connect to New Yorks past immigrant generations.
New York City in 1903: The Coney Island Polar Bears Club is founded / Jamaica Race Track opens on April 27 / St. Vincent's Hospital opens on Staten Island / The New York Stock Exchange moves to 8 Broad St. on April 22 / The first permanent municipal playground in the country opens in Manhattan's Seward Park / On October 24th, 10 workers died in the IRT's worst construction disaster when the roof of the Fort George Tunnel collapsed. A total of 54 workers died building the IRT
Recommended reading:
The Lower East Side Remembered & Revisited
- Joyce Mendelsohn
Portal to America: The Lower East Side 1870-1925
- Allon Schoener
Emigrants i.e. immigrants Landing on Ellis Island - 1903
Photographed July 24, 1903. Thomas A. Edison, Inc.
Camera: Alfred C. Abadie
"No fewer than 12,668 immigrants arrived in this port yesterday, the largest number in one day recorded in the history, of the immigration service." - New York Times, Friday, April 10, 1903.
By 1910, immigrant settlers made up 40% of New York City's permanent population. 40% of the current U.S. population can trace their roots to arrivals at Ellis Island.
The Federal government opened the island in 1892 for immigration services and it remained in operation until its abandonment in 1954.
New York City in 1903: Baltimore Orioles relocate to New York. The club was officially known as the "Greater New York" baseball club. Dubbed the Highlanders by the press they would eventually come to be called the Yankees / The last steam train ran over the Sixth Avenue Elevated on April 3rd, replaced by electric transportation / Frederick Thompson and & Elmer ''Skip'' Dundy buy Sea Lion Park in Coney Island from Captain Paul Boynton and transform it into Luna Park / Nov. 23rd, Enrico Caruso debuts at the Metropolitan Opera in 'Rigoletto' / Dec. 19th, The Williamsburgh Bridge opens (see video)
Statue of Liberty - 1898
Sept 3, 1898 Edison Manufacturing Co.
Bedloe's Island in New York's upper harbor. The statue was only 12 years old at the time of this film. This is the first view immigrants had of the New World as the ships would enter the harbor. After years and lifetimes of living in nineteenth century labor, poverty, and strife, and after weeks of traveling on the ocean, the symbolic and emotional sight of this entry into America must have been incredible.
Recommended reading:
Statue of Liberty / The First Hundred Years
- Bernard A. Weisberger (Houghton Mifflin Co.)
Parade of Horses on Speedway - 1902
Photographed May 15, 1902.
American Mutoscope and Biograph Company
Location: West bank of the Harlem River, New York, N.Y.
Camera: Robert K. Bonine
A parade of fine horses and fashionable carriages ride along what is now the Harlem River Drive, in the High Bridge section of northern Manhattan. The view is from the Manhattan side of the river looking north. On the right is the Harlem River and on the opposite bank, The Bronx. Prominent in the background is High Bridge at 175th Street, an important landmark completed in 1842 as part of the Croton aqueduct system. Beyond the High Bridge is the Washington Bridge at 181st Street. The Speedway was built in 1900 at a cost of over three million dollars.
