On Friday I posted a colorized look at footage shot in Paris in the 1920s. The same person who restored that footage–their YouTube handle is NASS–also did this look at New York City in 1911 and it is equally evocative and fascinating. We see a city in transition–it still feels slow-paced and a bit small-townish, but the automobile has made an appearence (just slightly) and has joined the electric streetcars and horse-and-carriages and pedestrians in the slightly thickening streets. The camera itself is still a modern miracle; at 1:10 a natty young man, short of stature and wearing a smart little cap, notices the camera and stares at it with frank delight. He ignores the one legged man who laboriously makes his way down the center of the street on crutches (ignoring the camera). The young man disappears but moments later reappears a little further away, taking yet another smiling look at the machine that’s recording him. He was likely born circa 1890-1895 which means his fascination with the camera may well have led him into the film business. In the 1920s, in his mid to late 20s, he may well have wound up in Hollywood, climbing the ladder as a camera assistant, focus puller, film loader etc. Eventually he’d become a full fledged Director of Photography, perhaps working on crisp black and white gangster movies at Warner Brothers, or sleek art-deco musicals at RKO. By the mid-thirties, age 40-ish, he’d become a leader in his profession and began working on prestigious Technicolor swashbucklers. He got a chance to direct once and didn’t like it. D.P.s have an isolated autonomy on the set within their crew that directors don’t enjoy–too many actors and producers egos to take care of. He went back to being a D.P. and worked well into his sixties, possibly winding up in television and being given an award by the A.S.C. for a lifetime of achievement in his craft, which all began one day in 1911 when, as a young fellow in downtown Manhattan, he spied a camera photographing the passing parade and fell madly in love with the instrument and its possibilities. And now that moment has been preserved for all of us to see…