Comments on: Photographs of American Cities

Photographs of American Cities

jonson — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 09:43:34 -0800

Photographs of American Cities from the middle of the 20th Century.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 09:50:08 -0800

Nice. Those pix of New orleans were particularly evocative. I think I saw Blanche DuBois in one of those windows.

By: East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94

East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 09:56:37 -0800

It's all so... Cuban!

By: pyramid termite

pyramid termite — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 10:00:57 -0800

michigan downtowns - first two are of battle creek sometime in the 50s - it was still somewhat like that in the 60s it's very different now some of the smaller towns, like crystal falls, haven't changed that much

By: jonson

jonson — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 10:11:36 -0800

Great link, PT - thanks!

By: Autarky

Autarky — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 10:21:06 -0800

Cool pics, good post.

By: TrialByMedia

TrialByMedia — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 10:27:30 -0800

Wow, I walk down this street several times a week, and I can only recognize one building besides the Capital.

By: stbalbach

stbalbach — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 10:40:32 -0800

The cars, the clothes and the signs are what stuck out. I guess buildings are less ephemeral. These are pics from the early days of color photography, the further we move away from the 1940s-50s the more interesting it becomes. Imagine in 70 years looking through old Flickr streams and Google streetwalk. The building will be the same but the signs, clothes, hair and cars will be foreign (no gas cars at all by then).

By: acro

acro — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 10:54:25 -0800

Thanks for the post; and pt, that Michigan page was great!

By: archaic

archaic — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 11:07:06 -0800

Great post. It led me to this.

By: PROD_TPSL

PROD_TPSL — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 11:29:01 -0800

Those photographs help me better understand the world that my grandparents and great grandparents lived in. My grandparents lived in central Indiana from childhood in the 1930's until 1962. That is when they move to Jacksonville, FL. They now live in a home that was built in 1937. Mrs. TPSL and I reside in a three bedroom bungalow built in 1940. Red brick, oak floors restored by yours truly, and a great fireplace and mantle. It's a house with truly American character... and it feels so good to live in it. Suburbs... are... well whatever it is the hell they are. i grew up in them... and I do not wish to bring the little TPSL up in them. Urban Jacksonville has it's issues... most neglected American cities do. But I am very proud to live here... just down the street from my grandparents. I think that I will have to invite them over and share these wonderful images with them. jonson, Pyramid Termite, archaic... I thank you all.

By: pyramid termite

pyramid termite — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 11:29:50 -0800

I guess buildings are less ephemeral. it's been awhile since i've been to lansing, but quite few of those buildings you see are gone, replaced by parking garages, ball parks and a museum that lansing photograph was taken on michigan ave, probably near pennsylvania ave and sparrow hospital actually, i was born on that corner! that wing of the hospital was torn down decades ago, though

By: ugf

ugf — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 11:31:53 -0800

I love looking at all the old advertising. I especially love seeing buildings where the businesses have painted who they are in the windows - "George Smith, Tailor." These pictures are really amazing - it's really odd to see cities I've visited looking so small, and some of the pictures made me want to visit the cities I haven't, just to see if they have the same sort of character visible in these images.

By: mmahaffie

mmahaffie — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 11:41:50 -0800

This is a cool post. It led me to search in the Cushman collection for photos of my state of Delaware, which led me to this 1040 image of the Old Dutch House in New Castle, which I shot from almost the same spot in 2005.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 11:56:11 -0800

Something in my brain doesn't want to acknowledge that the photos are 60 years old because they're in color. It's like my brain still holds onto the child belief that before 1960, the whole world was in black and white.

By: pyramid termite

pyramid termite — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 11:57:38 -0800

It's like my brain still holds onto the child belief that before 1960, the whole world was in black and white. it was - you should have seen the trucks and wires roll out in my neighborhood when we finally got color in 1964

By: jonson

jonson — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 12:08:43 -0800

Mathowie, don't you know that the world turned color in the 1930s? It was pretty grainy color for a while, though.

By: Navelgazer

Navelgazer — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 12:46:01 -0800

You are in downtown St. Louis. It is 1949. If you want to try to get into the sold out Lawrence Welk show, go to page 6. If you want to buy a ticket for "Burning Question: Victims of the New Sex Craze," go to page 13. (great post. amazing photos.)

By: tiger yang

tiger yang — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 13:15:11 -0800

awesome post

By: pyramid termite

pyramid termite — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 13:44:39 -0800

you are in downtown san diago - it is 1951 - many ships are in the harbor you are likely to be eaten by a crew

By: MarshallPoe

MarshallPoe — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 14:04:28 -0800

They had much better signage in those days...

By: From Bklyn

From Bklyn — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 15:07:12 -0800

All those years - you're looking at grandparents walking around: no idea you're gonna be lookin' at them in the year 20-07 on a what exactly? There has to be a term for the belief that times were a little less cynical then. thanks.

By: scottymac

scottymac — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 15:22:54 -0800

You are in downtown St. Louis. It is 1949. That arch is not there. That image is bogus.

By: synaesthetichaze

synaesthetichaze — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 15:25:01 -0800

Ha, wow! Harrisburg is on there... that's odd, it's such a small city. All of those photos were taken in the winter, and the city looks identical when it snows today. Fun fact: the westernmost half of the bridge in the first shot (the one from the 40s) was completely destroyed by a river-glacier in the mid-90s. Where before, you could walk from downtown Harrisburg, to City Island, and then over to the West Shore, now you would fall into the toxic Susquehanna and die.

By: synaesthetichaze

synaesthetichaze — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 15:26:31 -0800

Scottymac, that particular photo is labeled 1966.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 15:40:52 -0800

Dammit, I want to visit that NYC, where all the men are wearing hats like me. Another great post, jonson!

By: dw

dw — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 15:46:02 -0800

The shot in Tulsa is looking north on Boston from 6th Street. The tower in the distance with the white parapet looking thing is 320 Boston. Here's a shot from the opposite direction now. Only thing is, it's from the top of what's at 3rd and Boston now. (Yup, same architect as these buildings.)

By: dw

dw — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 15:47:11 -0800

Dammit, I want to visit that NYC, where all the men are wearing hats like me. Why? We men don't have to wear hats now. Therefore, we can dance when we want to.

By: frobozz

frobozz — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 18:24:39 -0800

On any older photograph I always look at the people first. And I look at the women wearing skirts and coats a uniform three inches below the knee and am reminded of my grandmother, a seamstress, saying with some disgust, "Girls just wear skirts of any old length now. There used to be a certain style to it."

By: Rich Smorgasbord

Rich Smorgasbord — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 19:35:17 -0800

I like your grandmother.

By: salvia

salvia — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 19:45:02 -0800

Wow, Wichita, there was once lots of life downtown! (Maybe there is again? I lived there in the 80s.)

By: pjern

pjern — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 20:12:35 -0800

Hmmm... Indianapolis hasn't changed at all... Just the names on the stores.

By: notswedish

notswedish — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 21:41:17 -0800

Those are the cities in which my grandparents went out on the town when they were my age (20). For some reason, seeing them in such vibrant color (I agree with mathowie, the cognitive dissonance of seeing color photos from the 1940s is striking) immediately makes me understand that, most likely, during these years, these people that I know solely as elderly, feeble, and mentally spacy, had experiences very similar to the ones I'm having now. 60 years from now, will my grandkids look at pictures of contemporary Chicago and think similar thoughts about me?

By: GalaxieFiveHundred

GalaxieFiveHundred — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 22:50:20 -0800

I've been puzzling over this picture of Atlanta for hours now. The only trace that remains of the scene is the Hurt Building, which is the little bit of white in the center of the photo. I'm pretty sure that's the Hurt Building anyways. The Kimball House is the only other clue to the picture's location. It's a bit unclear but I think it was bounded by Central Avenue and by Decatur, Wall, and Pryor Streets. The Kimball House was razed in 1959 and replaced with this. My best guess is that the picture was taken from the intersection of Wall Street and Central Avenue, looking north up Central Avenue. I'm still not sure though. That area is completely different today. Thanks for the post. Even though now my girlfriend is mad at me because I was too wrapped up thinking about this picture to come to bed with her.

By: dhartung

dhartung — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 23:57:46 -0800

The Garrick in St. Louis is indeed playing Reefer Madness, pre-irony. There are two really neat photographs that just recently became Featured Pictures on Wikipedia: * Mulberry Street, a photochrom from around 1900 * Piccadilly Circus, a Kodachrome slide from 1949 They're both in frighteningly full resolution if you click on the preview.

By: Afroblanco

Afroblanco — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 06:57:35 -0800

This one really threw me for a loop. Fellow New Yorkers will recognize that "fairytale castle" building with the towers and spires and the golden statue at the top as the Manhattan Municipal Building. See all the other tall buildings around it? Oh, that's right. There *aren't any* yet. Pretty weird, no?

By: WPW

WPW — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 07:40:15 -0800

Very nice.

By: ethnomethodologist

ethnomethodologist — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 19:21:06 -0800

All manner of cool things await you at skyscrapercity and skyscraperpage.