(first posted 1/10/2017) A couple of months back, I shared you a gallery of 1970s vintage snapshots of New York. It was popular, so here’s some more. I picked this one as there’s a white Peugeot 404 just like the one I had, as well as a “fishbowl” GMC bus like I used to drive. And my mom had a ’73 Coronet like the taxi. Let’s see if you can find any of your old cars.
34th street between 5th and 6th, 1979
59th Street and 5th Avenue, 1977
Broadway and 12th. St., 1970
Brooklyn Bridge, 1973
East Second Street between Avenues C & D, facing North, 1980
Harlem, 1971
Manhattan Bridge tower in Brooklyn, New York City, framed through nearby buildings, June 1974
Morton St. looking east, 1973
Seventh Ave and W22th street, Jan. 1976
Times Square, 1972
Times Square, 1975
Cedar Street, NYC, 1975
Columbus Ave. and West 73rd Street, 1979
Park Avenue, 1979
Park Avenue, NYC, 1970
W23 Street, Jan 1976
WTC twin towers, NYC, 1978
Times Square, 1973-74
More at vintage.es
I could have been behind the wheel of any of those Coronet cabs in that 1972 pic of Times Square.
That sure looks like Tom Selleck’s photo on that Salem cigarettes billboard.
Selleck was a model in the days before he became a TV star. He strikes a pose in a Lincoln brochure from the seventies I believe. I no longer have the brochure.
He’s also in the 75 Mustang II brochure.
He’s also in print ads for the 1976 Dodge Charger.
That billboard kind of cracks me up. “I enjoy Salem Box”, with no other text and the Giant Head of Tom Selleck.
All those cabs in that pic and not one Checker? How did THAT happen???
They were pretty much gone by the early 1980s.
I don’t have to look for any old cars I use to own…I still own them!
I really enjoyed seeing these as I did the earlier series. My favorite vehicle is that early “fishbowl” in the first photo. I’d love to ride in one again, and feel that bus surge forward when the torque converter locked up.
Surge, or clunk and lurch? The kinesthetic feel of that lockup is embedded in my body from childhood 50 years ago. Or maybe the busses around here weren’t maintained as well. Back to the photos … there’s a Vega a bit like mine in the Morton St shot with the Pinto in the foreground. But what’s in front of the Vega? A Lark, or a Fiat, or even a Corvair? It’s oddly foreshortened by the telephoto lens and unusual, but unrecognizable by me.
The AC transit New Look buses I rode surged, I don’t remember them operating in a clunky manner. The “old look” buses however, all used to clunk. The older the bus, the more protracted the lock-up. On the oldest buses, the engine rpm would drop, and after a pregnant pause came the clunk. I want to assume that the newer the bus, the more refined the converter lock-up mechanism was. At this point, I miss them all.
Nice notchback Vega for Ed on Morton Street there, but I don’t see any Matadors.
Always fun to see Times Square not overrun with Spider Man and Hello Kitty.
Love that Rambler Cross Country wagon! And a Pacer!
I like the vague similarity of the Rambler to the Fleetwood in the foreground. If you ran the back of the Fleetwood through a copier a couple hundred times, you might end up with the back of the Rambler.
Especially when the ’59 Rambler Cross Country wagon is contrasted with the ’58 Cadillac Fleetwood in the foreground. Both have fins, small horizontal taillights and are black. The Cadillac comes off as being an overweight, overblown luxo barge in comparison to the year newer ’59 Rambler. I find it interesting they both have the same rear styling cues although done differently. One of the most expensive cars vs one of the inexpensive cars of the day, a study in contrasts for sure. I wonder if the Rambler just accidentally photo bombed the picture or if it was staged that way?
Great photos – the New Look appears to be in good shape. Reminds me what one movie Director once said, “there’s no place you can point a camera in NY and not get a great shot…”
I love the last shot, with the Viking Blue 72 Cutlass Supreme on the left. My mother bought one like it, only light green.
Also loving that black 58 Fleetwood from the early 70s Harlem shot.
These shots of Times Square reminded me of a really old one I saw recently for the first time. From around the turn of the 20th Century, look who had the big sign there atop the building before the neon Chevrolet or Canadian Club signs that are so well known from later.
I think this is the same spot from possibly the 1970s. Allied Chemical.
No one seems to have their headlights on, wonder when their useage became more common? Awesome photos indeed especially the atmosphere in this one. Surprised there does not seem to be as many dents nor as much rust as I was expecting. Not sure what design the graphics on that Camaro are supposed to be.
https://i1.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/New-York-City-in-the-1970s-15.jpg
No such thing as daytime running lights in the 1970s.
In those days people normally would only put their headlights on during the day to warn opposing traffic of a speed trap.
Or if they were in a funeral procession.
In Pittsburgh where I grew up, it was quite a tradition for people to use only their parking lights well into deep twilight. This was true at least up through the 70s.
It’s interesting that even in the NYC snowy street scenes, no one has their headlights on.
I enjoy looking at these photos then comparing them to today by going to Google Maps Street View. I was trying to match up the Broadway and 12th St. photo. Also that picture of the Manhattan Bridge through the buildings is like a setting from those great 70s cop films like The French Connection.
Love the 1980 pic of “Loisaida” – I used to live right around the corner from there. Those vacant lots always had an abandoned and vandalized car or two. As a kid, I used to go steal emblems from them.
I was one of the few ‘nuts’ who always had multiple cars when I lived in NYC. My original car was a ’66 Stude Commander. Eventually it’s ignition burned up on the Major Deegan Expwy. Tony Caralla, long-time Studebaker repairman in the Bronx gave me $50 bucks for it. Six months later, I bought a rusted out ’60 Lark. It needed tires. Tony sold me the two rear snows from my old car for ….. $50. Nice guy.
I eventually ended up with a ’64 Dodge Dart. Then I inherited a ’66 Barracuda from some friends who had upgraded their car to an old ’64 Chrysler Newport. The five times I forgot to lock my Dart’s hood with a bicycle cable were the five times my battery got stolen. I think that means someone tried my hood every night for the years I owned the car just hoping to get lucky. Then I moved to Chicago’s Bucktown for Architecture School and the car was unmolested for the rest of my ownership.
Oh, there’s the Pinto I drove ’til it was smashed by a Police Car at an intersection in Towson. Don’t have that happen to you….. In 30 seconds every police car in the area is on the scene, while you stand there alone on the corner while every person who drives by is laughing hysterically at you.
Where’s that Orange Bus from? Long Island? Its going to Jamaica Ave, but NYC (at least Manhattan) buses were in a blue/green livery. With the advertising lines along the top (like in the earlier post). Anyone else have in their minds the chatter that the coin-boxes of the NYC buses used to make as they automatically sorted the coins after the driver flipped your fare in with his lever? On a busy bus that noise never stopped.
The orange bus is on Main Street and 41st Avenue in Flushing. The orange bus could be the Nassau Inter-County Express from Long Island, they have a bus stop on Roosevelt Avenue and Main Street.
The shot with the Grace Building is West 43rd Street and 6th Avenue, facing east.
Never been to NYC but these pics sure give a strong impression of what it was like in the 1970s – at once dirty and turbulent, but also bursting with creative energy.
Several pics really stand out for me: any of the ones showing the Twin Trade Towers, the Harlem pic from 1971 with the young black man sitting on the back of an old Plymouth and a Rambler wagon passing by; and the one immediately below it showing a grimy, scary part of the city with the Brooklyn Bridge in the background; and a few pics down the one showing a young Tom Selleck on a Salem cigarette billboard; and the one of Park Avenue in 1979 – notice how relatively clean that street was compared to most of the city, perhaps a reflection of the wealth in the area?
All in all great pics of a fascinating time in the city’s history.
Whoops! just looked at that one pic again and it was a Caddy Fleetwood not a Plymouth! Pretty far from it’s target market in the early ’70s!!!!
That Broadway 1970 pic has a red 3rd Gen G-van in the background. It must have been brand new because it was first introduced for MY 1971.
My favorite pic is the ’58 Fleetwood. The casual exhaustion on the young man’s face adds a human touch to the scene.
I’m fascinated by the woman with the green BMW 2002 in alphabet city in 1980. The east village was REALLY down on its luck in the early 1980s and her surroundings look pretty bleak too. The brand of car and the fur imply some wealth, but the shape of the car and general surroundings argue for a bit of a barfly type of woman…
If you ever get the chance, Live-In Productions does this interactive murder mystery in the Lower East Side that’s set in the 1970s. So you basically walk around the neighbourhood and find the actors and “interview” them. They have this one actress – a phenomenal, hilarious actress – who plays a junkie hooker called Trixie Pop. She had us in stitches! Even at one point hollering out to passers-by offering her services and trying to recruit new girls. It’s funny to see such 1970s LES characters juxtaposed against the rather nice, safe surroundings of today.
That 2002 was kind of passé by 1980, as was that kind of fur coat. I lived on 10th at 1st Ave right about then. I didn’t go much past Ave. A on foot. There was a great old hulk of 1955 Packard that used to park on the street over near 10th and Ave. D. It was the kind of car that didn’t look like it ran, but it moved around with the parking regulations. Kind of like the whole neighborhood back then.
My dad didn’t move to the village until 1983 (12th street, then 11th, then finally 10th and university). Alphabet city was strictly drive through for us at that point, getting to and from the FDR drive…
There was a guy who sat on a stoop at 10th and 2nd ave selling weed back in 1986-1987 timeframe, after they cleaned up Washington square park for a while. That was as Far East as I went on foot. Of course I don’t endorse weed any longer, called to sobriety by Jesus, but back then I didn’t know better.
I think I see my 71 lesabre coming off the bridge though I don’t recall those 2 vertical pieces of the front bumper.
Those were optional bumperettes. Yours probably didn’t have them. They were supposed to help to keep your bumpers from locking in a crash.
That Harlem, 1971 photo and its subjects appeal to me very much… The Caddy is in very good condition for its age.
I love these vintage photos of my favourite city. I know things are more tourist-friendly these days but the city still has so much character and it is much safer and cleaner to live in.
Fascinating series of photos! The 58 Fleetwood is very similar to the one my great uncle bought from an estate sale — it was battleship gray instead of black.
Here are a couple of shots from mid-November 2016 of the Brooklyn Bridge heading toward Manhattan and …
…a peak of the Manhattan Bridge between buildings on the approach to the Brooklyn Bridge.
Picture #4, Broadway & 12th, ’61 Valiant. 170 ci slant 6 with either 3 on the floor or 3 buttons on the left. Indestructible running gear. Tinfoil body. The one in the photo actually looks surprisingly good for NYC car. A dark cloud overhead was usually more then enough to begin perforating the body.
Trying to think what that film would have been starring Lee Marvin and Gene Hackman in ’72. As a Hackman fan looks like I have some research to do.
I looked it up…”Prime Cut” released summer 1972.
I’m a little surprised that there aren’t more Japanese cars in these pictures, because I remember seeing quite a few of them growing up in the Pacific Northwest. (Only the Corolla in the shot of the Twin Towers from 1978). Maybe they started off as more of a regional thing.
From what I hear Japanese vehicles were first popular on the West Coast then in the later 1970s became more popular on the East Coast.
They weren’t popular in areas that got a lot of snow as they literally disintegrated at the sight of road salt. Yes, even fast than the domestics of the day if you can believe that.
Vintage New York is such a treat, it’s so sad I never got to experience this more gritty, working class version of the city. From what I’ve read and seen in pictures/movies, it seems like a vastly more interesting, genuine, and accessible place. It’s crazy to imagine that regular, average joe type people actually used to live and work in Manhattan as these pictures show. Sure it was nasty and way less safe, but that’s part of the charm (hey… I’m from Detroit, so nothing really seems that bad and gritty = cozy)
It’s really a different world now. If you were to take pictures at the same locations in 2017, not only would the cars be different (90% leased luxury vehicles and Camry taxis), but the entire look and feel of the landscape. All but the upper class have been pushed out to NJ and Long Island and it’s largely a bland, over-gentrified tourist trap full of trust fund twentysomething hipsters whose parents pay their
(astronomical) rent. The days of the secretary driving her Dodge Dart home to her humble dirt cheap apartment in Harlem are long gone. Maybe some see this as an improvement, but these pictures of Old NYC make me sad to think about what it’s all become.
+1 on all of this, I was going to say something similar but you said it better, Max.
Much the same can be said for many of America’s hyped-up cities. (Seattle, Portland, San Francisco come to mind on the West Coast)
There’s definitely truth to your comment, but i think you’re taking it a bit too far. I was in in NYC in the 70s, once for 6 weeks, and got a deep immersion. It was mighty gritty in part indeed.And perhaps more accessible, in that the museums and popular attractions weren’t all so expensive and crowded. I used to pop up to the top of the Empire State building or Rockefeller Center in a whim; no waiting, etc. Now it’s a major undertaking.
But I can assure you that there weren’t any secretaries driving their Darts downtown from Harlem! They all took the subway, train or bus; nobody drove to the office anywhere in Manhattan. Not even the executives, with possibly some very rare exceptions. Folks have always used mass transit in NYC.
And your portraying all young folks trying to build a career in NYC as trust-funders is also pretty grossly inaccurate. Yes, there are some, of course, but there’s plenty of them there because of the jobs and other reasons, and they share apartments as need be. Actually, rents have dropped substantially in the past year or so. And needless to say, wages are a lot higher generally than in Cedar Rapids.
Then again, I lost my wallet walking thru Times Square in 1978 with a college roommate who just had to see it. It literally fell out of my pocket. And wouldn’t you know a nice man found it, called the phone number in Philadelphia that was on my ID (when dialing long distance in the middle of the day actually was a significant cost), talked to my parents and I was able to get it back.
Times Square. 1978. When strongmen hung out in front of every storefront with a stack of nudie leaflets they were handing out, adverstising the ‘wares’ inside, slapping them on their hands and yelling, ‘Check it Out!’. Yet I got my wallet back untouched!
NYC.
Ed N. says: “… strongmen hung out in front of every storefront with a stack of nudie leaflets they were handing out, advertising the ‘wares’ inside, slapping them on their hands and yelling, ‘Check it Out!’.”
Indeed. I recall walking down towards Times Square in 1976 or 77 holding hands with an attractive young girlfriend when we saw a guy saying “Check it out; check it out” to those in front of us. When we got to him, he held back the leaflet and said: “You don’t have to check it out; you is already checked out”.
NYC. Yup!
On the same day as the check-it-out story a block further south, a man turned the corner just in front of us walking a llama on a leash. My girlfriend’s eyes got big and her head turned to follow the llama as it passed. I decided to play it NYC-cool and as the pair walked past us, my girlfriend said “Did you see that?”
My NYC-cool response was: “See what?”
You mention going to the top of the Empire State Building on a whim, and I did just that in 1972, no wait, just did it. And this was on a Saturday afternoon.
When visiting with my wife and sons in 1996 (still pre-9/11), there were long lines and it took us at least 2 hours to get to the top. My wife was too scared to ride up, so my sons and I went up and had a blast, plus I got very lucky with the lighting for a photo of the iconic twin towers. Who knew?
Oh, to have had the foresight and wherewithal to have bought some of those vacant or car- filled surface lots back in the Seventies!
It didn’t take long to spot 3 cars from my past:
1) A 71 Dodge Dart Swinger coupe, my dad and our family’s first new car.
2) A 73 Cadillac Coupe de Ville, my first car
3)A 1978-80 Mercury Monarch sedan, and navy blue, just like my uncle’s company car, when he was a traveling salesman for Proctor & Gamble…It could BE him, he lived in CT, and travelled into NYC, once in awhile.
Not all pics are from the 70’s…The sixth photo, shows a quad headlight Ford LTD. It looks like a 1980-1982.
Love old New York City…
Okay, now cue the Taxi and Welcome Back Kotter theme songs, or the score from Robert de Niro’s Taxi Driver. Lol
These pictures remind me of the intro to “Dog Day Afternoon”. Wonderful shots!
https://youtu.be/rhyjIMrFlpw
All are wonderful and hint at the different lighting experienced in the city at different times and seasons. I think my favorite, however, is the Harlem picture, with the young man seated on the trunk lid and the “matching” tail fins and tail lights on the Rambler and Cadillac. I wonder what current styling detail will catch the eye and date a picture in sixty years?
Wonderful photos of a time past that I enjoyed living in .
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Subscribed for the comments .
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-Nate
Having lived in Westchester 1977-81 and drove to NYC quite often, these are a flashback for me. Wonderful pix.
Wonderful pictures – I especially like the one with the Manhattan Bridge tower; the use of perspective combined with the deep shadowed stone facades of the buildings, gray sky (and of course the old cars)- makes me want to visit New York just to see it in person. The architecture and overcast, gloomy vibe remind me of a street in Hamburg or old Seattle.
Paul,
The white Peugeot in the first photo might have ’emigrated’ to Peru some times ago…and continues its life as a daily drive in Lima.
Oliver
PS Would it be possible to reconfigure your website to allow multiple posting of photos? I had to resort to Photoshop to stitch photos together into one, which is bit time consuming. Just something to keep in mind for the rainy days…
Probably not. These features are plug-ins, and they come with certain features. To be honest, I wish it would reduce/limit the size of pictures that are allowed to be attached, as some are just huge, which is not the ideal for our poor server.
It’s probably quicker to just do 3 comments. 🙂
All right, no problem.
It does seem to limit the size of pictures. Also, big pictures with high data compression can have smaller file sizes than small pics without much compression.
What is the silver coupe [in front of the red Beetle] in the snowy Columbus Ave shot?
1965+ Corvair Monza.
No offense, but other than the historical interest (automotive and otherwise) these pictures reminded me how much, fairly or not, I dislike New York. I’ve only been there a handful of times (the first time in 1972, so I might even be a blurry 15 year old kid in one of these shots), never for more than two days and never voluntarily, and each visit reinforced my bias. Back to cars: from this statistically insignificant selection of photos, I’m surprised at how many Corvairs and how few VWs there were. And from my first visit in ’72 and next visit ten years later, I also recall seeing a surprising number of Peugeots, which I subsequently associated with the Northeast, despite their being fairly common on the west coast then.
Maybe there were others, but in my quick skim, I only saw ONE lonely pick up truck, and a step side at that! 🙂
Even to this day, you don’t see many pickups in NYC. I swear I saw more pickups in inner-city Mexico City – albeit still not many – than I ever did in NYC. Commercial users tend to drive vans and if you do see a late-model pickup, its generally a fleet-spec Silverado. No fancy Laramies or Platinums or Denalis or what have you..
The oldest car I’ve owned is the ’79 Malibu, and only 2 or 3 shots are from that late. No Malibus that I can see.
I do especially like the one of the young man in Harlem sitting on the trunk of the Cadillac–great scene, great cars, and a great photo of a young man taking a break from the daily hustle.
In the Times Square ’75 photo, what is the small white car with quad lamps? Not a lot of detail to go on, but it looks noticeably smaller than…just about everything else.
I think it could be a 1969-72 Fiat 124 Coupe. Something like this: http://bringatrailer.com/2014/09/17/nice-example-1972-fiat-124-coupe/
Have you got any pictures from the 80s? While the pictures from the 70s do bring back childhood memories I spent much more time in the city during the 80s in high school and college.
It was dirty but you always see these dirty places/areas in these artsy pictures. Try and find some pictures of Bensonhurst Brooklyn in those days or Morris Park in The Bronx. They were safe clean quiet close knit neighborhoods with generations of the same families living there. Like small towns. Not dramatic enough I guess. Always plenty of late model Caddies or Buicks around. Middle class had more money to spend.
In the Columbus/73rd street shot form 1979, silver looks like an Opel Rekord Coupe or Euro Ford Taunus???
Looks like a gen2 Corvair coupe to me.
Not automotive but worth mentioning, the photo labeled “Times Square 1975” shows a Winston cigarette billboard, the likes of which we will never see again. Look closely at the mouth of the guy on it. There is an opening there. When this picture was taken the guy was apparently between puffs but this billboard blew smoke rings. I don’t think that these smoking billboards made it into the 80’s.
I had forgotten what it was like when it was legal to advertise cigarettes.
No Saab 95’s or 96’s like I used to own, but you can’t please everyone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kc2wjvoOmV
As a kid in the Seventies-this was my memory of New York……
[For me it said “Video Unavailable”.
Drat….it was the opening sequence to ‘McCloud’…….
Giant Tom Selleck head!!!
lol