Images of Old New York

[19], I doubt you're a lawyer, too. Or are you saying that Cornell doesn't know what it's talking about?

www.copyright.cornell.edu/trai...

It's not even "probably" don't have the copyright. They specifically mention, among other sources, public institutions for their pictures, all of which they claim copyrights on. You cannot take somebody else's work, make some minor adjustments at best and claim copyright. If it's already copyrighted, that's infringement. If it's not, you can't copyright public domain materials.

I guess I am the nerd for not reading to the end of the article. But great site!!! Sadly, I remember when alot of those places (Columbus Circle, downtown) looked like that.

For anyone interested in more of the history of the Schwab house, I found the following at cityrealty.com:

In 1907, steel magnate Charles M. Schwab moved into his new, 75-room mansion designed in French chateau-style by Maurice Hébert on the block bounded by 73rd and 74th Streets, West End Avenue and Riverside Drive.

The site had formerly been occupied by the New York Orphan Asylum and had been purchased by financier Jacob Schiff. According to Peter Salwen, Schiff's wife worried that "would never see her fashionable friends again if she had to live on the Drive" and reluctantly Schiff sold the property to Schwab, who was an associate of Andrew Carnegie's in running United States Steel.

In his book, "Upper West Side Story, A History And A Guide," (Abbeville Press, 1989), the cream-colored granite structure had 116-foot-high pinnacles and was impressive enough to lead Carnegie, who had recently built his own mansion on Fifth Avenue and 91st Street that is now the home of the National Museum of Design, to ask a friend, "Have you seen that place of Charley's...,It makes mine look like a shack."

When he died in 1939, Schwab bequeathed his magnificent house set in lush gardens behind handsome fences to the city for the mayor's residence, but, Salwen recounts, "a proletarian Mayor LaGuardia indignantly rejected it" 'What me in that?'" (In 1943, the Mayor moved into Gracie Mansion in Carl Schurz Park on the Upper East Side.)

Riverside was torn down in 1948, less than ten years after Schwab's death, to no protest. It was replaced with a 17-story nondescript apartment bldg.

WOAH, this is one of the coolest things I have seen on gothamist (which is saying a lot) -- thank you!!

The URL for the flickr group is in the article.

The URL for the flickr group is in the article above.

Brightliner, I doubt you're a lawyer. Copyrights can last for 150 years. They probably don't have the copyright, though.

But where do these guys get off claiming to have copyright on the pictures? These are old pictures mostly published before 1923, which by law makes them public domain. You can't copyright public domain works.

And that's absolutely Old St Pat's in the Sullivan funeral picture. Where else would the Tammany sachem have his funeral?

Toby: Okay, you win.

However, thanks for the ammo the next time I get my chops dragged over the coals ("at least I don't have the soundtrack... yet!")

BTW, you got a URL for that flickr group?

what a shame... now we complain about tearing down the domino sugar factory... meanwhile we lost something like that.

The mansion is the Schwab mansion called "Riverside" which occupied the entire block from 73rd to 74th Streets between Riverside Drive and West End Avenue. The photo is taken from above Riverside Park looking northeast from 73rd and RSD.

The mansion was replaced by and enormous block-filling postwar brick building alternately called Schwab House and Eleven Riverside Drive whose only architectural distinction is that the brick is red rather than white.

The mansion is the Schwab mansion that occupied the entire block between 73rd and 74th Streets from Riverside Drive to West End Ave. The picture is taken looking NE from RSD toward WEA & 74th Street.

The mansion (called "Riverside") was replaced by an egregious post-war building called either Schwab House or Eleven Riverside Drive which occupies the entire block. It's only architectural distinction is that it is red rather than white brick.

Tim N. I am more of an inside the archives nerd than you, since I have the soundtrack!

And I was the one who came up with the NYC Then and Now flickr group.

that image with the mansion... where exactly is that? interesting picture, kind of sad we lost some of those homes, must have been really beautiful.... and now we have those "lovely" white 50s/60s coops.

The reference to the Bowery was strictly gleaned from the title and caption at Old Pictures, which are "Sullivan funeral bowery". They probably were referring to the Bowery as the wider surrounding neighborhood, in which case I should have used the word "in" instead of "on". I'll make the change. Thanks.

One of the things I love about the site is that you can stare at a picture for minutes trying to pry visual and architectural cues from the past to determine a location.

[5] I'm afraid I miswrote when I said it was the original Tombs. The one mentioned by Melville was the original and modeled after an Egyption mausoleum. It occupied the same real estate as the one pictured (built in 1902), but was a much shorter, less-imposing and more-classical-looking building. Sorry for the confusion.

"The yard was entirely quiet. It was not accessible to the common prisoners. The surrounding walls, of amazing thickness, kept off all sounds behind them. The Egyptian character of the masonry weighed upon me with its gloom. But a soft imprisoned turf grew under foot. The heart of the eternal pyramids, it seemed, wherein, by some strange magic, through the clefts, grass-seed, dropped by birds, had sprung."

-Bartelby, the Scrivener, 1853

Bob is right. The picture of funeral of Tammany boss Big Tim Sullivan on the Bowery looks more like a southwest perspective from Mott toward the intersection of Mott and Prince. The street looks to narrow to be Bowery and the brick wall looks like the wall around Old St. Patrick's.

OK, I'll admit it, I'm a total Inside the Archives nerd. My wife makes fun of me, my daughter makes fun of me, I don't care. Give me more pictures of Penn Station and the Third Avenue El and the FDR under construction!

So that is the Tombs where Bartleby died. What a great resource. Thanks

That looks like Mott Street looking south, not Bowery.

Same war, same park: the picture of the mock battleship for recruiting purposes and the anti-war protest both show Union Square.

Thanks for pointing out this website, my productivity is going to be non-existent this afternoon. :)

One consequence of the anti-German sentiment during World War I is that Germania Life's management changed the company name to Guardian Life. It may have been just a short time after the above picture was taken.

Interesting to see the photos with crowds for rallies or funerals or whatever. That kind of behavior is illegal now, and will get you several days in jail.