In 2014, as Ivan Kosnyrev was moving to NYC, he decided to learn more about its history. "I thought that if I learned more about the city, it would make me feel more at ease," he told Gothamist. While he says he's still exploring "every little pocket of land in the five boroughs," this year he took on a new project focused on his neighborhood, Tribeca.
This summer, he pulled old photos from the NYPL's Old NYC image database and ventured out to capture the landscape as it looks now. "Once I started I couldn't stop," he told us, and in total he recreated 29 shots to match up with the old ones. (Not all photos in the database are dates, but they go back around 100 years, give or take a decade.) If you click through, you'll see fairly exact recreations paired up with their historic counterparts.
"I think the neighborhood, in general, stayed in really good historical shape, which itself is surprising, especially in New York," Kosnyrev told us, though there have been plenty of casualties.
"I think St.John’s Park changed the most," he said. "It used to be a fancy neighborhood with a private park in the middle, like Gramercy. Today it still holds the name but the area now serves as the exit from Holland Tunnel. In the last picture pair the difference is astounding."
