Berenice Abbott - Changing New York

When I visited the Skyscraper Museum in February, I pored over a couple of books on NYC architecture. One of them was ';Changing New York'; by Berenice Abbott and the other, which I ended up buying was ';New York Changing'; (a fascinating series of ';before and after'; photographs - the first set taken in the 30%26#39;s by Ms Abbot and the second set taken by Douglas Levere at the end of the 20th Century). Wonderful as my book is, I regretted not buying them both.

I was delighted to find that the Museum of the City of New York has all of the photos from Changing New York on their website: www.mcny.org/collections/abbott/abbott.htm

For anyone interested in how the city looked between the wars, this is fascinating stuff! There is also a load more interesting stuff on the site if you take the time to explore.

Berenice Abbott - Changing New York

Ooohh..thanks for that Nic. I%26#39;ve bookmarked it to look at later. Glad to see you%26#39;re looking like your old self again btw,not that Michael Vaughan isn%26#39;t gorgeous mind you!

Berenice Abbott - Changing New York

I thought I%26#39;d go back to the Kevin Pietersen look except that I have a bit more white in my hair than he does!

For people interested in photography, the Museum of the City of New York currently is running a fascinating exhibition of photographs taken by Danny Lyons in lower Manhattan in the mid to late 60s, at a time when many of the old 18th and 19th century buildings in that area (around 70 acres I think) were torn down to make way for modern redevelopment projects, including the World Trade Center complex and and an extension of the approach to the Brooklyn Bridge. Lyons essentially recorded many of the buildings and their residentss before they came down. There is also a book of these photos. This is something else you might want to check on the museum%26#39; website, if you can%26#39;t go in person.

Thanks for that, nycamb. It%26#39;s hard to believe that the photo on the website was taken less than 40 years ago, the buildings look almost Dickensian!

Nic,

Thanks for the link to the Abbot%26#39;s ';Changing New York.'; I spent some time going through it and found it really interesting. Many of the buildings no longer exist (as you know until recently everything came down) and also, of course, all of the elevated lines. I have to say that I do remember a number of building that no longer exist and area also, Water and South Streets before they became office buildings and Cortland Street when it was radio row. I%26#39;m not as old as any of those photos but I was born not too many years late.

Ken

Ken, if you get a chance to, try and get hold of a copy of ';New York Changing';. The ';after'; pictures were all taken from as close to the original spot as possible. It%26#39;s amazing how in some there has hardly been any change while in others the scene is unrecognizable. The saddest one for me is what happened to the old Jamaica Town Hall in Queens.

Compare the ';before';: www.mcny.org/collections/abbott/a249.htm

with the ';after';: photobucket.com/albums/y122/nicbro/鈥?/a>

And that%26#39;s progress, folks!

Nic

Nic, Actually I grew up in Queens, a few miles from Jamaica and I knew that area after the Town Hall but before the McDonalds. Ken

Well, I never! What a small world. How did it come to be called Jamaica by the way?

What a lovely site. The photos of South Street and Oliver Street are familiar from when I grew up there. I love the image of the roasted corn vendor, his cart looks like the one used by our knish man, only his didn%26#39;t have a little chimney.

I%26#39;ve been looking through this slowly and I love the information given with each picture. It%26#39;s a great site.