Thursday, February 23, 2012

Lost Manhattan

While looking through some old photos of New York City on the Library of Congress website, I came across a panoramic view of New York City from around 1908. The view was taken from somewhere in New York Harbor, from about the same angle from which I took pictures of Manhattan, from the Staten Island Ferry last weekend. I wondered how many of those buildings, which dominated the skyline 100 years ago, still existed. Then, as I continued going through the Library of Congress photos, I came across hundreds of other Manhattan landmarks from the same time period of 1900-1920, some of which still exist, and others of which have long since been demolished.

My goal in this blog is not only to highlight some of the photos that I found on the Library of Congress website, but also to fill in the details of what has happened in the intervening 100+ years to the subjects of the photos. When possible, I will also include my own photos to show what the subject or site looks like today.

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