"I PRAY YOU LET US SATISFY OUR EYES
WITH THE MEMORIALS AND THE THINGS OF FAME
THAT DO RENOWN THIS CITY"
Valentine’s Manual of Old New York for 1921 opened with this quote from Shakespeare. One of the book’s aims was to recall “the spell of an older and quieter city.” Another was to portray “the age in which we live … the most marvelous that has yet been known.” Toward these ends, the editor included “a series of contrasting views,” one decades or centuries earlier, a second contemporary to 1921. Here are twelve of those contrasting scenes.
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The Water Gate, foot of Wall Street, in 1679. Showing the original "Wall" across the city.
The same view in 1921.
A view of the East River shore and shipyard at foot of Maiden Lane in 1679.
The same view in 1921.
View of the dock and Whitehall, East River, in 1679.
A contrasting view of the same locality in 1621.
Worth's Coal Yard, at 26 Broadway, in 1848.
26 Broadway in 1921, headquarters of the Standard Oil Company.
Broadway from Cedar to Pine Street in 1865.
The same block showing the third Equitable Buildingon the site in 1920.
Bill's Books
A Novel of New Amsterdam
The Mevrouw Who Saved Manhattan
"[A] romp through the history of New Netherland that would surely have Petrus Stuyvesant complaining about the riot transpiring between its pages."
- de Halve Maen, Journal of the Holland Society of New York
Rare early view of Broadway north from 52nd Street about 1865.
The same view in 1921.
The bathing beach at Coney Island in 1869.
A view of the bathing scene at Coney Island in 1920.
