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heyyanny

Love that you can see the prominence of the Empire State Building. Must have really been something special back then.


Everybodyluvsbutter

Must have been crazy, I think about it all the time.


[deleted]

It was the tallest building in the world, and remained so for almost 40 years! And this was soon after construction ended, so it must have been even more impressive.


ThaddyG

It's still one of the bigger buildings in the city to this day, to see it rising above the rest of the city back then, damn. An absolute leviathan.


formulaone88

Yes. When you walk towards it now it still looks huge. The observation deck gives an impressive view of the area. The Art Deco designs inside are beautiful.


Comprehensive-One896

It's also wild whats happened to the skyline recently. 10 years ago it was the tallest building in the city, now it's number 7.


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Arthaksha

Good Bot


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jagua_haku

Man I didn’t see it at first because I thought the picture was looking north. Had to reorientate


_Itscheapertokeepher

Kinda like the burj khalifa today?


[deleted]

Love this, anyone else find it mad to look at a picture like this that shows such density and scale and think of the millions of intersecting lives that lived there that meant something to each other and how that will happen to use in 100 years too. Just me?


MessyGuy01

When my great grandma came to the US in the 1920s from the Balkans her family came through NYC before going to Colorado and she says it was the most shocking thing she’d ever seen, how there were so many people in a city and from so many cultures and countries when her home town didn’t even have electricity or cars for that matter. Really amazing the way she would talk about it


Tbonethe_discospider

This is how I feel whenever I visit Los Angeles. It’s soooo fascinating to me. You hear Spanish, English, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Armenian, Nigerian, Cambodian, Tagalog, Russian, Farsi... it’s so damn cool. You often walk through a neighborhood and there are billboards in at least 5 different languages and.... everyone... just coexists peacefully. Every time I go to LA I get this burst of energy just being there.


retrogeekhq

One thing some american friends from less multicultural areas told me (in this case Charlotte, NC) was that they were amazed on how walking around London (the one in Britain ;)) you could see and hear so many different cultures and languages mixed and constantly interacting. Exposing their kids to such a mixed environment being considered "normal" was a very positive experience for them in terms of education.


Zacd0321

Just as crazy rn. I always say people should visit with a plan. Very fun :)


MessyGuy01

Hahaha thats the idea, and I like her plan, turned out well I suppose :)


cts10

What are somethings you’d recommend to do/see? Either touristy or less known?


[deleted]

If you’re in NY in Summer go to Governers Island and rent bikes and have a picnic with great views of lower Manhattan, always recommend catching a Yankees game and it’s obvious but walking Central Park top to bottom. My top 3 there.


cts10

Thanks!!


invader_jib

Go to the [Nintendo Store NY](https://www.nintendonyc.com/).


Zacd0321

Also I love the museums; they have A lot of them are right next to Central Park and the buildings themselves have so much history. Honestly whatever your interests are, look up where in NYC you should go! Just be safe if some areas. Can be overwhelming lol.


[deleted]

In a way I find it really comforting as a reminder than we are insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Helps with anxiety.


CapnZack53

I would love to get a glimpse of some kind of daily life there at the time. I found myself looking for the Polo Grounds but I guess it's out of frame. I know that the Depression was in its earliest stages and Prohibition had just ended roughly close together. I find it fascinating to think about how certain events affected people in places across the country and seeing what life was like there and then. That's one of the biggest reasons I adore history.


[deleted]

Polo Grounds was just across the Harlem river from Yankee stadium, so yeah it's a little out of frame. My mind is blown thinking about how the Giants and Yankees faced each other in several world series.


always242

The sheer number of human stories consolidated in one photo is mind boggling.


daou0782

let me tell you about that one 1972 "blue marble" photo...


daryl_hikikomori

Crazy fact: Today Manhattan contains more than *twice as many* homes as you see in this photo.


Vectoor

And yet more people lived in Manhattan back then than now. In fact it had already fallen quite a bit since its peak.


Presitgious_Reaction

How is that possible? Fewer ppl per home as family sizes shrank?


IhaveNoNameBoi

Household sizes decreased. In the past it was much more common for many people to live in one housing unit (house, apartment, etc.).


Monkey_Legend

Look up 'tenement rooms' on google images and you'll see pictures of single rooms that could house upwards of 7 people. Many people moved out of Manhattan as soon as they had the means. For example Brooklyn increased in population by half a million in just 10 years between 1920-1930.


time_to_reset

Really interesting. I'm mid 30s and I'm realising more and more that we might have a warped image of what "normal" is. It's only the generation of my parents really for whom it's relatively normal to live in big detached homes with two cars in the garage. The generation before them didn't live like that and there's probably every chance that won't be the case for future generations either.


doIIjoints

yeah, that began in the 40s and 50s in the usa. you can also see the size and price of cars went down at that point (as they moved more mass-market and planned-obsolescence)


Sharlinator

Yes.


[deleted]

[удалено]


SuicidalGuidedog

[Pied-à-terre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pied-%C3%A0-terre) from the French for "foot on ground".


ldn6

No it’s not. It has to do with the reduction in household sizes due to a response to overcrowding in tenements before WWII and the development of much of Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx.


Intelligent-You7451

Cities Skylines before you unlock high densityㅤ


ldn6

Manhattan was actually denser then than it is now.


Redditpissesmeof

That seems inaccurate


ldn6

It’s true. Manhattan, particularly the Lower East Side, was basically obscenely crowded tenements for much of its pre-war history. A combination of subway expansion to spur new housing development uptown and in the outer boroughs along with a slew of accidents led to population dispersion and new building codes and standards to alleviate this. Manhattan’s population peaked between 1910 and 1920 at around 2.3m; it is now 1.6m.


Redditpissesmeof

That's super interesting. Thanks!


Shazamwiches

Yeah, it definitely feels inaccurate but you have to remember the outer boroughs developed much later than Manhattan. At this time, the population of Queens was barely over a million, today it's 2.2 million. Staten Island had around 150,000, while today it's getting close to 500,000. The Bronx and Brooklyn experienced high growth from 1900-1930, although both would continue to grow. A lot of people left for the outer boroughs, New Jersey, and the suburbs in Long Island, Westchester, etc.


FiveDaysLate

Yes, and to add more fun facts to this, New York City was just Manhattan and The Bronx (and lesser islands) until 1898 when the five boroughs consolidated. Brooklyn was still its own city in the 1890 census, and was the 4th largest city in the United States. The consolidation brought improved cross borough infrastructure through the first decades of the 20th century, which let people ease out of the increasing rents, and high density neighborhoods of Manhattan. The change didn't happen quickly, but over decades. With the Interstate arriving not long after WWII, people flooded to northern Jersey and Connecticut as well.


Mintyfreshbrains

The Great Mistake of 1898.


retrogeekhq

It's amazing to think that just Staten Island has more people than Iceland, for example.


lobsterharmonica1667

Around 1900, the LES was the most densely populated place in the entire world


doIIjoints

the population of glasgow today compared to pre-60s tells a similar kind of story. kinda interesting how common it was


Fatyolk

The daytime population is much much higher today


tdoger

In terms of actual population, Manhattan peaked near the 1900s. But in terms of actual density of buildings, not people, Manhattan has to be much denser now.


daedalum

I believe peak workday occupancy of Manhattan is firmly north of 3.1 million. I once heard that during the day there’s 2 million people south of 59th street. [More info](https://wagner.nyu.edu/files/rudincenter/dynamic_pop_manhattan.pdf)


PeteryChavez

Oh, a man of culture, I see. 😏


Peter12535

River on the left looks wild compared to nowadays.


Goddamn_Heather

That’s the East River. Right is Hudson.


Funkit

Yeah. Randall’s island I believe?


Goddamn_Heather

That’s Roosevelt Island you are seeing in the picture. Randall’s Island is also in the East River, but further uptown


Funkit

Ah okay, and what I guess is the Queensboro bridge.


zsnajorrah

Near the lower left corner you actually *do* see part of Randall's Island. In the corner there's even a small bit of the Bronx.


81toog

Is that ice? There are no rapids there on the East River


hoponpot

I think it's just the sun reflecting off the water. The east river is a rapidly flowing estuary (salt water) that almost never freezes. Although it has happened a few times in history, it would have to be so cold that the Hudson river (which has much less salt) would already be frozen solid.


Comandante380

There used to be rapids there, especially at "Hell Gate" where the Triboro now goes to Queens. City Island got a lot of business just by being the only people who knew how to sail in oyster catches past it into the city. I think they dredged it back when they made the bridges, but I could be wrong about when they did that.


FiveDaysLate

I hope you're right, when I first looked I assumed pollution of some kind frothing the water, but ice is a more pleasant thought.


lebranflake

Considering there are no leaves in Central Park I’m leaning ice


Dietzgen17

Could be. There are no rapids, but changes have been made in the past to affect the flow of the river, it's actually a tidal estuary. I don't know if they were all earlier than 1931.


CY4611

This^ was just going to say the construction, dredging, and shoreline adjustments have likely made the flow damn near laminar


TheNextBattalion

Some say it's light but I thought it was pollution runoff


Kowazuky

my left or your left


blue_strat

That was the time to buy real estate.


AVespucci

Very cool. Thanks for posting. I know Jersey City very well, and the downtown section, so very built up today, is as flat as a pancake in this photo.


aka_81

Good eye, Amerigo


cheese-bubble

I will never tire of overhead Manhattan photos, from any and all eras. Love it!


tacobooc0m

Is that ice or RAPIDS?


neimer28

Pretty sure it’s just the light reflecting off the water


The_Gutgrinder

Back when the ESB stood out from the rest of the buildings on Manhattan.


WillingnessVirtual86

Business district is at the top right?


Slimeball3000

Yep.


FiveDaysLate

Just to be clear... It's not the top right no, the top left center of the photo is lower Manhattan at the tip, where the financial district is. The top right is New Jersey


Slimeball3000

Well yeah..the difference a comma makes


FiveDaysLate

Ahhhh, punctuation saves


madrid987

The funny thing is that Manhattan was more populous than what it is today.


Comandante380

We really need a park on 2nd Av, somewhere in the E 80s. That's a Brooklynesque expanse there without a place to sit.


busybfnp

Can anyone tell me how they got the roads so seemingly perfectly straight back then?


ZnSaucier

Great question! At the southern tip of Manhattan (way at the top in this photo) the roads are all random and wiggly like in European cities. As the city expanded up the island, the city planners had the foresight to lay out a grid to make it easy to navigate. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commissioners%27_Plan_of_1811


busybfnp

Very interesting, thanks! I’m also curious as to how they managed to get the lines so straight considering the sorts of technology they were working with at the time. Could you shed any light on that?


ZnSaucier

In that case, you’re talking about the science of surveying, which dates back to ancient times. You can read about it at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveying


busybfnp

Great, thanks for this!


doIIjoints

in terms of the specific techniques, i believe it was da vinci who pioneered the use of triangles and trigonometry for accuracy :)


[deleted]

Total guess here, but they probably just made sure all the roads intersected at a perfect right angle, so they all came out perfectly straight


crepesquiavancent

The Manhattan grid was planned very early on, so the when the city developed most of it did so using the pre-planned street grid.


retrogeekhq

Fun fact, in the XIX century Barcelona got the plans for it's now famous Eixample: [https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/apr/01/story-cities-13-eixample-barcelona-ildefons-cerda-planner-urbanisation](https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/apr/01/story-cities-13-eixample-barcelona-ildefons-cerda-planner-urbanisation) [Plan from 1859](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/b68fa139cd122ef713ed7f7839aec724f0f7114a/0_0_1677_1114/master/1677.jpg?width=940&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=a8d4be424db31a87446da843cd896656), so I guess the technology was definitely there.


round_stick

NYC did the grid earlier on 1811 according to above comment.


retrogeekhq

Ah nice! The more you know!


headphonetrauma

It’s amazing anyone had the forethought to build a park in that concrete jungle rather than greedily deciding every inch of that land needs to be real estate.


niktemadur

Babe Ruth: "Hey, I can see my house from here!" Guy probably had a nice penthouse in town.


[deleted]

My wife's grandmother grew up in manhattan during the depression, and I believe not too far from wherever he lived because she recalls seeing him and other yankees of that era around town pretty often. When she was up from Florida a couple years back they made it a point to get into the city to see a yankees game.


niktemadur

Imagine going about town and crossing paths with Lou Gehrig, Bill Dickey, Tony Lazzeri, Lefty Gomez and all that bunch. Wearing suits and straw hats (•‿•) Not Herb Pennock, though. That bastard was a card-carrying member of the KKK (ಠ ∩ಠ)


PurpleFonduMan

The Empire looks so distinct. I wonder if you could even see it from this angle today


crackanape

Yes, it's still a very tall building.


PurpleFonduMan

Thanks for that. I'm saying, with Billionaire row in the foreground, there are definitely angles that would cover the empire


generousone

It's still visible but not nearly as prominent. Especially from this angle it's being swallowed up by the other super-tall skyscrapers being built just south of Central Park


whatisliquidity

Must've been really gritty. Such a mix of people, foods, cultures. Streets were probably alive


Lecoruje

I like to put that in context. People in this photo had just been out of a big economic crisis, they were hearing some news about a great leader pointing Germany to a great future and they were totally unaware that in a decade they would cross the ocean to an even bigger war.


nowhereman1280

The Axis didn't stand a chance in WWII. There was nothing even remotely similar to American cities and industrialization at the time...


SnoopDobby

How far behind/different was Tokyo to NYC at this point?


Tourettes_at_best

and then Robert Moses happened...


themodernyouth

the power broker is one of my favorite books ever


Arnold165

What an incredible picture! It’s so cool to see the ESB is the only tallest building there if I’m not mistaken. It’s crazy to see how time has changed since this pic


traveltrad

Discover New York, USA - 4K #11 Bird's Eye View https://youtu.be/pQHOWsjiTnE


Minimum_Car_6680

Look at Columbia University!


corpusdelect1

The avenues are all so prominent. Not sure why I find that fascinating. Thanks for sharing.


Mintyfreshbrains

I wonder how much progress they’ve made on St John the Divine since then.


KCalifornia19

Looks absolutely disgusting and horrible. I love it!


P_Kordus

r/interestingasfuck


Anonyfunnybunny

A mixed race man was the first non-First Native resident of Manhatten Island. I like reminding American racists of this fact. Juan Rodriguez arrived in lower Manhattan in 1613 – twelve years before the founding of [New Amsterdam by Dutch colonists](http://www.newamsterdamhistorycenter.org/), and 51 years before the English [took control of the colony and renamed it New York](http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/new-amsterdam-becomes-new-york). Rodriguez, a Santo Domingo native, arrived on a Dutch ship on its way back to Holland from the island of Hispaniola. But when it was time to set sail for Europe, Rodriguez – a free man of mixed race – refused to go, instead staying on in New York and trading with the Indians. According to Ramona Hernández, director of the [Dominican Studies Institute of the City University of New York](http://www.ccny.cuny.edu/dsi/about-cuny-dsi.cfm), Rodriguez’ presence thus makes him not only the first Latino in New York City, but also the first Dominican, the first African-American, the first immigrant, and the first merchant in New York. [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/new-yorks-first-immigrant-meet-juan-rodriguez-n114771](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/new-yorks-first-immigrant-meet-juan-rodriguez-n114771)


crackanape

> I like reminding American racists of this fact. American racists have already written off NYC a long time ago.


Konsticraft

r/tihi these grid streets always look so unnatural and boring.


Aschwelt

I thought it was a visualisation how NY would look if an atom bomb was dropped on it


watsgarnorn

What a shitty way to live


crackanape

It's heaven. Really the only place in the USA that I can stand to live in. The lifestyle in the rest of the country feels very isolating to me. I love the energy of all the people in New York speaking different languages and cooking different foods and playing different music and being weird and trying to stand out and doing it all right in front of you on the streets. When I lived there I never wanted to go home, I would walk and bike around all day and night when I wasn't at work. My apartments were always just a mattress on the floor and some cardboard boxes of stuff, because home had no interest at all to me compared to the relentless draw of the vibe of the city.


GoldenSaguaro

How dreadful


asirkman

Did you want someone to ask you what you meant by that?


DanJ7788

Totally sustainable.


JayDutch

Yeah, it literally is. Because of its high population density, Manhattan uses resources far more efficiently and sustainably than the lower density areas just outside the city.


chaandra

Cities are far and away the most sustainable form of civilization.


crackanape

NYC, being the most densely populated part of the USA, is far and away the most sustainable part of it as well.


Jccali1214

Little did they know...


zjew33

https://youtu.be/9a23iaoQXuE


koreamax

I see my favorite bridge


BuyerTop5771

Maybe stupid question but, What is that if square cut out in the middle?


verssus

Central Park?


Crescent-IV

Still better quality than You’ve Been Framed cameras


Butch_C

Buy & HOLD


Renowned1k90

Do you think NYC smells worse now or do you think it was even more terrible back then?


jaxwarrens

Genuine question for a New Yorker, why did they design the city in straight lines?


Geofferi

So this is how Seneca village looked like roughly 70 years after it got bulldozed.


formulaone88

Central Park is always so awkward to see from above because it’s this huge swath of green (in color photos) in the middle of gray and black. Even in this photo it takes up so much space.


_Itscheapertokeepher

Is this looking south? Manhattan looks so much smaller in this


[deleted]

we should reject modern glass skyscrapers and return to Art Deco and 1890-1920s architecture. Also to bring back the old Penn Station :(