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Someone marked this pretty panoramic picture on Delicious, and the title of the page says "newyork/building/1900_sky.jpg". We're guessing that means it's a skyline shot of NYC taken in 1900, but for the life of us, we can't figure out exactly where it was taken, or identify the buildings in the shot. Can you? [Related: for beautiful historic NYC photos, we recommend the NYC Department of Records site-- lots of the photos can be ordered as prints!]
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Yep, I'm pretty sure this is New York...lower Manhattan taken from Jersey/Hudson side. The giveaway is Trinity Church (in the center of the panorama to the left of the BTBabbit Best Soap sign). So little of this is recognizable today since so much development has happened in this area. Almost everthing in the forground on the left panel was demolished for the construction of the WTC, and the island itself has grown significantly bigger here due to the landfill created by WTC construction, which provided the land for Battery Park City.
here's a Library of Congress page showing a similar view, coming around the tip of Manhattan and headed up the West Side.
Gotham Gazette has a whole page of similar images here.
BT Babbitt was a soap manufacturer located at 70 Washington Street. It would be right where the Holland Tunnel currently comes out.
BT Babbitt was a soap manufacturer located at 70 Washington Street. It would be right where the Holland Tunnel currently comes out.
Huh, I was going to guess lower Manhattan from Brooklyn. Doesn't that look like the Municipal Building in the middle with the wedding cake on top?
I think in these old etchings it was common to insert buildings that hadn't been built yet. So, it's possible that some of the buildings in this picture were never built at all.
A wonderful Thomas Edison film puts it very much in perspective...
http://memory.loc.gov/mbrs/lcmp002/m2a05172.mpg
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/papr:@filreq(@field(NUMBER+@band(lcmp002+m2a05172))+@field(COLLID+newyork))
not a nyist, but an avid ny historian from my home in sunny los angeles... i think i see the municipal building... definitely early NY
If Babbit's is where the Holland Tunnel is now, then that can't be Trinity Church. And churches usually last down through the centuries. I can't think of any churches down near the end of Canal Street, I could be blanking out.
But I think everyone is right, it's the Lower West Side. Isn't that the Archives on the extreme left?
Great photo, JD. Thanks for posting it.
It can't be 1900, the Municipal Building wasn't started until 1909 and finished in 1914.
New York Architecture Images
The top one is brooklyn, near the promenade in brooklyn heights.
The bottom frame is obviously Manhattan: the dark bulding at the far right is George W. Post's magnificent Produce Exchange, demolished to make room for the hideous 2 Broadway. The very tall dark tower, with flying banner, looks a lot like the Singer Tower, though this was not completeted until 1908. A larger view might make the lettering on the banner clear.
In the upper view, the tall building at the left is the Park Row Building (15 Park Row, completed in 1898), its twin tourettes seen from an angle that makes them look like one. The partially constructed ATT Building (195 Broadway) is just in front of it. To its left is the very distinctive dome of Joseph Pulitzer's WORLD building.
The gabled building in the center of the upper frame looks very much like 55 Liberty Street (now luxury condos), though that building was not finished until 1909. Perhaps (given this and the Singer sighting) the suggested date is off by about a decade. The Municipal Building is too far north to appear in either view.
In any event, these are two views taken in the lower Hudsaon, most likely from a boat, just north of the Battery.
This is clearly NOT Brooklyn, as the steep bluff on which Brooklyn Heights is built, clear in photos both old and new, is nowhere to be seen.
People, it's the same photo... click on the link... it's two parts of a panorama.