# Some great photographs of old New York, 1884-1904 **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 10, 2021, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-great-photographs-of-old-new-york-1884-1904/937626 "2021-03-10T16:14:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2021, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-great-photographs-of-old-new-york-1884-1904/937626/1 "2021-03-10T16:14:12Z")
> **[A Brooklyn chemist's 1800s photos capture New York in motion](https://mashable.com/feature/new-york-in-motion)** > > Wallace G. Levison took advantage of evolving film technology to freeze a city that never stops moving. Very cool. The photographer clearly like taking pictures of people jumping - to demonstrate how well his camera could capture a fleeting moment, apparently. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2021, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-great-photographs-of-old-new-york-1884-1904/937626/2 "2021-03-10T23:20:30Z")
Wow, thanks so much for this. It’s fascinating to see what shutter speeds were possible in that era. And my, how beachwear has changes since then! ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2021, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-great-photographs-of-old-new-york-1884-1904/937626/3 "2021-03-11T00:00:03Z")
Love the shot of Maggie on the diving board. ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2021, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-great-photographs-of-old-new-york-1884-1904/937626/4 "2021-03-12T15:16:37Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Very cool. The photographer clearly like taking pictures of people jumping - to demonstrate how well his camera could capture a fleeting moment, apparently. One funny thing is that he has pictures of people jumping off walls and boxes, but the picture with the diving board has the person just standing still. Of all the times to get a picture of a person in the air, a diving board would have been one of the best. I also noticed that in the picture of the walkers, he captured a moment which would have disqualified one of the walkers. The walker 2nd to the left has both feet in the air, which I think disqualifies a person in a walking race. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2021, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-great-photographs-of-old-new-york-1884-1904/937626/5 "2021-03-12T15:27:04Z")
Derby hats seemed to be extremely popular. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2021, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-great-photographs-of-old-new-york-1884-1904/937626/6 "2021-03-12T15:34:14Z")
I like the second picture down, proving that the habit of New Yorkers never looking passersby in the eye is an ancient one. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2021, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-great-photographs-of-old-new-york-1884-1904/937626/7 "2021-03-12T15:44:16Z")
Why the heck is there so much jumping? The third from the last photo is particularly interesting to me (and not just because there’s no jumping). It’s of Dreamland, one of the three big Coney Island amusement parks, and behind the circus performers is the Dreamland Shoot-the-Chutes ride, while to the left is the Fighting the Flames show. Both of these shows had copycat versions at Revere’s Wonderland, as I wrote about in my book (IN fact, so did the circus in the foreground. Wonderland, like Dreamland, had a circus ring beyond the “splashdown” region of the Shoot the Chutes ride) There’s a Mutoscope movie showing the Fighting the Flames show at Dreamland here: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/uJylhIhtrlA/hqdefault.jpg "Fighting the Flames Dreamland") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJylhIhtrlA) They actually built an elaborate set resembling a city block and set it on fire twice a day, with fire engines rushing to put out the flames and rescuing people from the burning buildings. ---
**Author:** ![Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiendish_astronaut/32/3295_2.png) [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiendish_Astronaut)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2021, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-great-photographs-of-old-new-york-1884-1904/937626/8 "2021-03-12T15:50:04Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Why the heck is there so much jumping? The photographer is presumably asking people to jump because the ability to freeze fast movement was new and he wanted to test or demonstrate it. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2021, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-great-photographs-of-old-new-york-1884-1904/937626/9 "2021-03-12T15:59:40Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > I like the second picture down, proving that the habit of New Yorkers never looking passersby in the eye is an ancient one. It also helps to be looking down to avoid stepping in horse poop. ---
**Author:** ![alovem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@alovem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alovem)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2021, 9:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-great-photographs-of-old-new-york-1884-1904/937626/10 "2021-03-13T09:07:17Z")
About halfway down, there’s an image of a girl and a woman throwing a ball back and forth. The woman looks unsettlingly like Almira Gulch from the Wizard of Oz. Of course, that’s just how women dressed back then, although I see that her name was Grimwood. _Yeesh_. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2021, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-great-photographs-of-old-new-york-1884-1904/937626/11 "2021-03-14T05:27:03Z")
Cool. My grandfather, from the Albany area, went to school in NYC during that time period – private school starting in 1884 at age eight up through Columbia University. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2022, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-great-photographs-of-old-new-york-1884-1904/937626/12 "2022-03-02T18:47:49Z")
Absolutely cutting edge. Same time as Muybridge, the Edgerton of his time. Muybridge was funded by Stanford, Edgerton, at MIT, by the Manhattan Project. And what strikes me is that these photographs were a public market pleasure–like Edgerton’s Raindrop and all those stopped balloon bursts, etc, down to the slow-mo guys on youtube. [![](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Horse_in_Motion_high_res.jpg) ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Horse_in_Motion_high_res.jpg) > **[Eadweard Muybridge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eadweard_Muybridge)** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > > Eadweard Muybridge (/ˌɛdwərd ˈmaɪbrɪdʒ/; 9 April 1830 – 8 May 1904, born Edward James Muggeridge) was an English photographer known for his pioneering work in photographic studies of motion, and early work in motion-picture projection. He adopted the first name "Eadweard" as the original Anglo-Saxon form of "Edward", and the surname "Muybridge", believing it to be similarly archaic. > Born in Kingston upon Thames, England, at the age of 20 he emi... > **[Doc Edgerton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doc_Edgerton)** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > > Harold Eugene "Doc" Edgerton (April 6, 1903 – January 4, 1990), also known as Papa Flash, was an American scientist and researcher, a professor of electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is largely credited with transforming the stroboscope from an obscure laboratory instrument into a common device. He also was deeply involved with the development of sonar and deep-sea photography, and his equipment was used by J... ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2022, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-great-photographs-of-old-new-york-1884-1904/937626/13 "2022-03-04T01:14:39Z")
I’m glad this thread was revived. I forgot how much I enjoyed seeing vintage photos of people jumping. ---
**Author:** ![mordecaiB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mordecaib/32/7725_2.png) [@mordecaiB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mordecaiB)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2022, 8:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-great-photographs-of-old-new-york-1884-1904/937626/14 "2022-03-11T08:00:58Z")
One of the most dangerous things about living in NY has always been dodging the elephants as you try to cross the rails. We lose thousands of people every year.