FREE PHOTOS: Lost New York City

A Time Travel exercise...

The last time I was in NYC I went to The Strand, one of the best bookshops in the world, and headed for the used stacks. I wanted something local and I settled on a big book from the 1960s full of pictures called Lost New York. If this article sparks your interest and you want to get hold of a copy, it is by Nathan Silver and it’s not expensive to get hold of.

Hats off to him. He was clearly passionate about NYC and her buildings. He even dedicates a section at the back to buildings that he considers endangered in 1967. Sadly he was right about most of them, and they’re gone too.

Probably the saddest loss for me is THE ORIGINAL PENNSYLVANIA STATION. They started building it in 1906 and it was epic in scale. The foundations were so extensive that witnesses likened them to the effort required to dig out the Panama Canal.

It was intentionally over the top, because the Pennsylvania Railroad Company wanted it to be basically a cathedral to railways that stunned people when they arrived in the city. The concourse sat under a number of glass domes that filled it with light, but all this glass, the size of it and all that metal, it was impossible to keep clean.

Dismantling the station

‘Until the first blow fell," the New York Times wrote on October 30, 1963, ’no one was convinced that Penn Station really would be demolished or that New York would permit this monumental act of vandalism… we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed.’

THE GERMAN WINTER GARDEN used to be at 45 Bowery. When it was built in the mid-1850s German beer gardens were all the rage; complete with cheese and dancing. Mr. Silver describes them as basically gentile speakeasies that the police just let go. The site today is in China town, right by the on ramp to the Manhattan Bridge.

CANFIELD'S GAMBLING HOUSE in Midtown belonged to Richard Canfield at the end of the 1800s. Apparently on a single night in 1902, Reginald Vanderbilt (his family makes Elon Musk look like a peasant) was still a lowly undergrad when he spanked $70,000 in one session. That’s more than $2.5 million in 2024 money. I’ve decided I don’t like him. He might even have tanked all that money in this room. The building later became offices. Nowhere near as much fun. It’s now a frilly apartment building, and about a year ago it would have cost you $4,000 a month to rent one.

THE PARK AVENUE HOTEL was right up the street from where the Empire State Building was later built. In the 1870s, it was originally a home for working women but the rules governing it were so oppressive that nobody wanted to live there and it was tuned into a luxury hotel. It was torn down in 1927. Big ugly offices there now, slightly art deco, and a Pret.

THE NEW THEATRE at W 62nd and Central Park West looked more like a palace, not a cinema. Opened in 1909. Unfortunately, as impressive as it looked, the acoustics were rubbish and it was in a bit of a crap location for footfall, and it folded. It was demolished in 1930 and once again, this one is now a boring looking apartment building.

GOVERNMENT HOUSE went all the way back to 1789 and it was put up on the site of the defunct Fort Amsterdam. It was supposed to be a residence for George Washington, but then the Federal government bounced to Philly then DC. It became the New York Governor’s Mansion for a few years, before the state tried to sell it to NYC. This eventually went through and in 1815 the land was parcelled and sold off. Nowadays the site hosts thrilling government offices for things like the US Bankruptcy Courts and the Global Entry Enrolment Centre right by Battery Park, but more importantly you can walk to the Dead Rabbit on Water Street in four minutes and suck down the best Irish Coffee in the world.

Lastly, here are a couple of towers. The first is a FIRE TOWER. When so much of NYC was made of wood these were essential. They doubled up as watchtowers for both fire and any other alarm. This one was on Ninth Avenue, built in 1851. Maybe Hell’s Kitchen or nearby?

The second image is of a SHOT TOWER. According to Nathan Silver, ‘Gunshot was made by splashing molten lead through screens at the top of a tower. The droplets then cooled into spheres as they fell through the air.’ The photo shows one Downtown on Centre Street, which was pulled down in 1908 when the Subway was being put in, but it was roughly where the NY County Supreme Court building is now.

I’ll definitely come back to this, there’s another batch of images, it’s made me homesick for Dead Rabbit and the Strand, but I hope you’ve enjoyed a wander through Lost New York. Till next time.