Movies 'Til Dawn Blog

LOWER MANHATTAN IN 1901–AFTER & BEFORE

Here’s some gorgeously colorized footage of lower Broadway and the surrounding environs at the beginning of the last century. Unlike the colorized footage of the city in 1947 that I posted last week, this includes the black and white version of the same footage–it comes after the colorized stuff finishes

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NEW YORK, 1947

Here’s another marvelous view of a now very vanished New York City, courtesy of the YouTube artist known as NASS. The city is seen in color (via colorization–it was originally shot in black and white) with an added soundbed of city noise, which somehow works wonder in terms of bringing

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BROADWAY TROLLEY TRIP CIRCA 1900

This extraordinary piece of film is a new one to me. It shows sections of a trolley ride–the camera mounted in the front of the car–down Broadway, from Herald Square to Union Square sometime in the very early twentieth century. Though the quality of the picture is poor, there is

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TRANSPORTING YOURSELF THROUGH MANHATTAN ON THE ELEVATED TRAIN

Our ‘transportation series’ (see Tuesday’s post) continues with this marvelous ten-minute short film about the history and vanishing of New York City’s elevated trains. In the first half of the twentieth century the city was jammed with El trains–2nd Ave, 3rd Ave, 6th Ave, 9th Ave, 10th Ave all had

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TRANSPORTING YOURSELF THROUGH NEW YORK CITY IN THE MID 1940s

The YouTube artist known as NASS has posted another of he/she/they’s wonderful updated urban history videos in which, by use of colorization, frame rate adjustment and an added soundbed, an old piece of documentary film becomes a most convincing and seductive new journey through the past. This is New York

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FROM AIRPORT TO MANHATTAN, 1940s STYLE

What are we to make of this delightful little color short film showing the arrival of a person at the Marine Air Terminal at La Guardia Airport in the mid 1940s? The film is shot quite deliberately–a moving POV of the person entering the cab is technically adventurous though clearly

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PARK AVENUE, 1951

The YouTube artist known as NASS has once again worked his/her/they’s magic on some rare footage of New York City. This time we are on Park Avenue in 1951 (the newest car seen on the street is a ’51 Oldsmobile, which is how the date was arrived at). By slowing

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PENNSYLVANIA STATION, NEW YORK CITY, 6/12/45

The above reel shows some of the most beautiful shots ever made of the late, great Penn Station. It was apparently shot (according to the Internet Archive where it was found listed under ‘dailies’ for films–i.e. uncut footage) for a movie called ‘Young Widow’ starring Jane Russell, released in 1946.

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