Here’s another of YouTube artist NASS’s wonderful colorized views of old New York City (with added sound bed of urban atmosphere). This time we are exclusively on Fifth Avenue in midtown. The year is somewhere between 1936-1938 based on the automobiles. The city is unusually clean–the streets literally look polished and the gutters are trash free. I know that we’ve all heard that everyone used to wear a hat, but it tends to sound hyperbolic after awhile. But this footage is actual proof that EVERYBODY wore a hat–I don’t see a hat-free head anywhere in site. It’s a chilly day as evinced by the topcoats worn by pretty much every man and fur stolls and collars on pretty much every woman, but nobody carries rain gear and the unusually bright light, combined with the brisk air, suggests that the time of year is early spring. No lanes are marked on the then two-way avenue and cars are pretty much on the honor system to stay on their side of the road. Cops are stationed every couple of blocks in the middle of the street, but i don’t see traffic lights even through cars do stop at intersections. At 4: 50 a nice little accident is avoided. It’s a few blocks south of Central Park. A vehicle is heading uptown (behind the camera and from the right) at a pretty good rate of speed. A second vehicle then came from the left, possibly from E.56th toward 5th Ave. The second vehicle almost hits the first one going uptown, but the first vehicle swerves to the right to miss the one coming from the left. There’s another vehicle obstructing our view, but you can still see it all happening. I am currently writing this twenty blocks from where this was shot and have no plans to visit this area in 2024 today. This lovely look at mid-town ninety years ago will suffice.