NYC potpourri

[Deleted]

I've been scanning some of the archives, so I've come up with a certain number of pictures taken before the days of digital cameras. Various years and in no particular order, so it is really a grab bag of the Big Apple.

Let's start with the good old Flat Iron building.





Inevitable Times Square...







So much of this stuff no longer exists!

[Deleted]

The Chrysler Building is such a photo whore.

[anshjain97]

Great stuff! Ah, when will I revisit NYC?!

[lola]

Fun photos. Were the tombstones being protected from downtown pollutants, I guess?

That was a rougher time in NY, judging from the cars, when it was possible to step outside gentrified zones while remaining on the island..

[Deleted]

It was so long ago, I don't remember why they were covered, but the reason for the protection was obvious from something going on nearby. Spray painting?

[Deleted]

Coney Island!

[bjd]

Those pictures look rather like what I saw the first time I went to NYC. It was the 1970s and we went to visit friends we had met while we were all hitchhiking around Europe. We stayed at one guy's house in the Bronx (before it went up in flames), went to fly kites in Central Park and I remember him driving us through Brooklyn and saying, "Don't roll down the windows".

I think I was rather paranoid and was worried every time we stepped out of the house, but it was also the time when the city was going through a bad spell.

But our friend didn't buy a gun until he moved to LA a few years later. He was a doctor and was often called out at odd hours. He found LA much scarier than New York.

[anshjain97]

I find it so very baffling how does, and did, US have such a high crime rate?! It is not a developing country with a corrupt police and judiciary, where few crime cases are solved...

The ubiquity of guns of course has a lot to do with it, but don't people realise that they WILL be caught and convicted?

[htmb]

Marvelous pictures, Kerouac. I've only been to NYC once and that was around 1967, so this is basically the New York I remember.

Bjd, you hitchhiked around Europe? I'm impressed!

[bjd]

htmb -- There was nothing to be impressed about at the time -- there were loads of us. It's uncommon now, for sure.

[Deleted]

ah, the wonders of the old 42nd Street...!



so if that place is closed, here is the alternative!

After having spent the first part of my stay on the 48th floor of the Sheraton Centre (former the Loew's Americana, currently the Sheraton New York Times Square) during one of my trips with a friend, I acceded to his extreme vertigo so when we came back to New York after a big loop through New York, Canada and New England, we stayed at the historic Chelsea Hotel -- which cost more than my airline employee discount at the Sheraton for not exactly the same quality. But since it was the temporary New York home of Bob Dylan, Virgil Thomson, Charles Bukowski, Janis Joplin, Leonard Cohen, Patti Smith, Iggy Pop, Viva, Gaby Hoffmann, Jobriath, and Larry Rivers, I certainly did not mind giving up a bit of comfort for a bit of history. Arthur C. Clarke wrote 2001: A Space Odyssey while staying at the Chelsea, Dylan Thomas died there of pneumonia and of course everybody knows that it is where Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols murdered his girlfriend. Apparently it closed in 2011 for renovation.

Here is the rather quirky reception area.





How many residents slit their wrists in the bathroom of my room?













That's all for now, but I'll dig up more sooner or later.

[lola]

Paint. Of course.

Very cool photos. You have caught a whiff of its infinite variety.

I remember those obnoxious Camels ads.

[lugg]

These are great. Some things look so different , others just the same. Thank you for taking the time to scan these so we can see them.

[anshjain97]

One of my memories of NYC is the base of the Statue of Liberty and the ferry. Less than a year after 9/11, visitors were of course not allowed to the torch.

[fgrsk8r1970]

Amazing photos Kerouac, the stark difference between the firefighter and the homeless guys right after is sad but beautifully captured.
I just recently went to NYC for the first time (2 years ago) so I am new to "the way it used to be"

Great stories, insight and shots!!!

[nycgirl]

Some of these sights are super familiar to me and look exactly the same as they do today, like the Chrysler (my favorite building), the Statue of Liberty, and the Pepsi-Cola sign. Others are unrecognizable, like the 42nd St ones. It's apropos that you snapped a shot of "Do the Right Thing," a quintessential New York film and a good time capsule of the '80s, playing at the theater.

Nice to have a glimpse inside the eccentric Chelsea Hotel. By the way, I didn't know until you mentioned it and I looked it up that Dylan Thomas died of pneumonia. I always read that he died of alcoholism and just now learned that recent findings suggest that his doctor misdiagnosed him.

This is great, I'd love to see what other gems you have in the crates.

[Deleted]

I found a few more from 10 years ago...

[Deleted]

This is the same Burger King that I had photographed 25 years earlier when there was a fire in the building. This time it bore the scars of the collapse of the World Trade Center a block or two away.

I had to see Ground Zero of course.





























People outside of the United States don't always know that Americans went into total flag mania after 9-11.

[anshjain97]

Fantastic cityscape shots.

[spindrift1]

I am enjoying these pictures so much. I love the Vesuvio Bakery! I have been to New York only once, in 1971 during November...cold and dark, sleeping during the day and out all night!

[htmb]

You really have taken a lot of photos over the years, haven't you, Kerouac!!!

I recognize the UN in several of your photos.

[Deleted]

I was staying at the Milford Plaza back then. It seems to change franchise at every opportunity.









You have to go there sooner or later...













Frankly, a lot of the NYC subway system lacks charm.

[Deleted]

Times Square forces you to take pictures when you are there at night, like it or not.













This may have been the first time I went up the Empire State Building after dark.

[anshjain97]

Frankly, I don't like going up observation decks at night because, mostly, all one can is lights. I prefer daytime- but you have captured the night shots very well.

[Deleted]

I don't have the slightest idea where I was here.

[bixaorellana]

What a great idea to publish these pictures all together! The last time I was in NY was in 1989, so some of the newer photos look stranger -- more futuristic -- to me than the older ones.

You took some really great shots with your pre-digital. What I just looked for in vain on the forum were your fabulous pics of New York during Obama's first inauguration, with the big screens and the happy crowds. Then I realized that was in January of 2009 & there was no anyport until February of that year, so those pics existed in a ttr past.

Depressingly ironic in this present to see that gun sculpture with the knotted barrel.

May 28, 2013 15:11:07 GMT nycgirl said:

... Dylan Thomas died of pneumonia. I always read that he died of alcoholism

Yeah, I always read that, too, specifically that he died of "massive insult to the brain".

[Deleted]

The gun sculpture was at the UN -- even more ironic when you think of the state of the world.

[Deleted]

May 30, 2013 15:43:10 GMT bixaorellana said:

What I just looked for in vain on the forum were your fabulous pics of New York during Obama's first inauguration, with the big screens and the happy crowds. Then I realized that was in January of 2009 & there was no anyport until February of that year, so those pics existed in a ttr past.

I just realized where I could find those pictures -- way way back at the very end of my first Photobucket album -- page 102, to be precise...

[bixaorellana]

Hooray! They're every bit as wonderful as I remembered. Thank you!

[bixaorellana]

I don't like adding outside stuff to someone elses thread. In this case, however, not only do I have clearance to do so but I strongly suspect it was actually made by Kerouac -- only in his previous lifetime. The info on it reads: New York City, Summer 1939. Rarely seen recently surfaced amateur movie, filmed by a French tourist, Jean Vivier, in 16mm Kodachrome. How obvious is that?!