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NYC Street Photographer's 1950s Photos Found, Headed To Queens Museum Of Art

Starting February 5th and running through May 20th, the Queens Museum of Art will be showing off the work of photographer Frank Oscar Larson, who documented the streets of New York in the 1950s. They're in possession of "several thousand historic negatives hidden from sight for 55 years," and will bring 65 of them in print form to their "1950s New York Street Stories" installation. Larson was a Queens banker who had a "lifelong passion for photography" and yielded a tremendous images of everyday life in 1950s New York.  

The negatives had been stored in more than 100 envelopes meticulously notated with location and date info in Larson’s own hand.  Since their discovery, Larson’s grandson Soren has been overseeing the scanning and printing of the 55 year old images.    According to Soren Larson, “Photographs dating back to the 1920s attest to the fact that he was always the family shutterbug.  But it wasn’t until the early 1950s that Frank’s passion for photography blossomed. Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, Larson made weekend expeditions around New York with his Rolleiflex Automat Model 4 camera around his neck, producing thousands of images which he developed in a basement darkroom.
 

Check out some of what he captured here, before seeing the show next month.

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Comments [rss]

  • Look at the Belgian block paved streets.  That Belgian block is still there, it just been topped with asphalt.  That block paving is over 100 years old now and still holding up the cars, buses and trucks.  100 years ago people knew how to build streets that would last. Today you're lucky to get 10 years out of any newly built stuff.

  • fosiacat

    Queens museum? cool, so... lost photos that people still will never see.

  • cloudschange2

    Get off your duff and travel!

  • splicernyc

    Pictures 2 and 3: Time travelling Morgan Freeman and Giancarlo Esposito, respectively.

  • the S.S. United States, holder of the Blue Riband for the fastest ocean liner across the Atlantic. Now a derelict hulk in Philadelphia.

  • Roger_the_Shrubber

    Posts like this are what Gothamist does best.

  • Then try the site "Shorpy.com".

  • Jessica Jones

    "meticulously notated with location and date."

    Which inexplicably, Gothamist decided wasn't really that important.

  • Peanut_Butter

    Man, what I wouldn't give to be able to take a trip back in time.

  • its the clothed cowboy!

  • cetriche

    love the shoes hate the dresses
     

  • tsol

    The outfits in the 9th pic are pretty sexy...

  • Peanut_Butter

    hot pumps!

  • SFNY

    If it's even half as good as the Vivian Maier trove, we're in for a treat.

  • TheRealCannibal

    Awesome! 

  • Picture #8 The shoeshine boys in front of Horn and Hardart, the automat.  Back in the 70's my mother took me to one of the last remaining automats in Manhattan.  I wish I could remember where it was.

  • SpideySense

    The last remaining Horn and Hardart was located at the southeast corner of 42nd Street and 3rd avenue, and was closed in the early 1990s. Previously there were about 6 others in Manhattan that gradually closed in the 70s and 80s.

  • Thanks, but I was very young and I can't remember which street it was on.  I remember the dessert was really good...whatever it was.

  • TimSPC

    These are so old, the Naked Cowboy was still in clothes.

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