More Historical Photos

The Atlantic sorted through the New York City Department of Records online photo database and picked a bunch of nice ones. Here are three I especially liked.

When I first moved to New York in 1979 I had an apartment on the eighth floor on W. 81st Street, across the street from the Hayden Planetarium. It’s classic and understated lines are long gone, alas, replaced by a dumbed-down tourist-friendly sciencey museum.

Later on I lived in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. My apartment on 2nd Street (which would be just off to the right of where the viaduct disappears) had a view of the tracks, which I used to use to time myself to get down to the subway station at the end of the block. When I saw the train leaving the 9th Street station (the train shown here is at 8th Street) I knew I could get downstairs, buy a copy of the Times, and get to the platform just before the train arrived.

I found a couple of photos from the ’80s of where I lived in on the site. My apartment was the top floor of the building on the right, and probably right at the time I lived there:

And a smaller image of the whole building:

Here’s where we lived in the late ’80s, when Alex was born. We had the top floor.

This one from 1919 doesn’t have any particular meaning; I just think it’s amazingly beautiful.