# Christopher Gray's "Streetscapes" Column (NY Times)

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-grays-streetscapes-column-ny-times/176557>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [May 21, 2003, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-grays-streetscapes-column-ny-times/176557 "2003-05-21T14:28:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\
**Post date:** [May 21, 2003, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-grays-streetscapes-column-ny-times/176557/1 "2003-05-21T14:28:06Z")

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Any other New Yorkers (or_Times_ readers) read this on Sundays? I am a huge fan—been clipping and saving them since it started 20-some years ago. It’s a half-page column in the Sunday _Times_, profiling a building or street from the city’s past: shows an old photo of it and a recent one (or a photo of what’s there now), with some sprightly history (OK, so I think history can be “sprightly”).

I’m a little ticked-off, because Abrams Press just came out with a collection of 190 Streetscapes columns, which I rushed out and bought ($35), and the book only shows old photos of the buildings, not recent ones. So I am bringing in my hundreds of tattered old newspaper clips and photocopying them a few at a time to save.

Do any of your newspapers have good local-history columns?

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**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\
**Post date:** [May 21, 2003, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-grays-streetscapes-column-ny-times/176557/2 "2003-05-21T17:52:50Z")

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I was _wondering_ what the heck you were talking about last Sunday.

I have _never seen_ this column, and I’ve been reading the Sunday Times since 1978…where does it run? The “City” section? Or do they bury it somewhere in the back of one of the parts that finds its way into the corner trash can on the walk back from the newsstand, like “Sports” or “Automobiles” ?

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**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\
**Post date:** [May 21, 2003, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-grays-streetscapes-column-ny-times/176557/3 "2003-05-21T17:59:15Z")

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Omigod, _you_ of all people have been missing this treasure? It’s in the Sunday Real Estate section, usually on page 7. Near “If You’re Thinking of Living In . . . [Weehawken or Hoboken or Ho-ho-kus or wherever].”

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**Author:** ![plnnr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@plnnr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plnnr)\
**Post date:** [May 21, 2003, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-grays-streetscapes-column-ny-times/176557/4 "2003-05-21T18:10:33Z")

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The Free-Lance Star in Fredericksburg has a great local history column in every Saturday’s insert. “Flashback” includes an old photograph of something of local interest and an indentification of those in the photograph. I submitted a picture of my grandfather and his first wife and their children taken on the day the Titanic sank. It got a nice little write up, and my aunt (who is damn near 100) called me up to tell me that “ladies don’t like to have their pictures in the newspaper.” I dutifully apologized.

Another photo that I recall was of a meeting of Civil War veterans (the Battle of Fredericksburg was one of the most lopsided Confederate victories of the war) who are all grizzled old men at this point. The picture was taken in the mid-1920s, IIRC, and clearly visible behind the men are several marijuana plants.