1890's
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
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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
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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.)
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