Uploads from syscosteve, tagged bw

East River - Shore and skyline - Manhattan Bridge and Dover Street ca 1930

nobody@flickr.com (syscosteve) — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 09:28:50 -0800

syscosteve posted a photo:

I wonder if this was a ferry dock before the bridge was built. I notice the Diamond S tugboat on the right side of the dock.and a freighter either going in or out on the left side of the dock. There is another craft called the Clinton moving in or out along side the Diamond. The sign over the staircase case says Pawtucket. Line, and above that in wrought iron letters it says "Creation Pier"
I found this an interesting photo. If anyone has information about this I love to know.

West Street, NY

nobody@flickr.com (syscosteve) — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 19:26:00 -0800

syscosteve posted a photo:

NY Mail Tube

nobody@flickr.com (syscosteve) — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 15:41:50 -0800

syscosteve posted a photo:

"N.Y. Post Office Pneumatic Tube" c. 1912. G.G. Bain Collection.

New York Pneumatic Mail System
Submitted by Anonymous Tipster on Fri, 06/29/2007 - 3:59pm.
A brief history of the pneumatic system in New York.

(Robin Pogrebin, NY Times, May 7, 2001)

In the bowels of New York City a century ago, not only was there the whoosh of water through pipes and the whiz of subways through tunnels, there was the zip of mail moving through pneumatic tubes at about 30 miles per hour.

The tubes -- others snaked under Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago and St. Louis -- were put into use by the United States Post Office in 1897. In Manhattan, they extended about 27 miles, from the old Custom House in Battery Park to Harlem and back through Times Square, Grand Central Terminal and the main post office near Pennsylvania Station. At the City Hall station, the mail went over the Brooklyn Bridge to the general post office in Brooklyn.

In describing the system's effectiveness during a snowstorm, a 1914 congressional report of the Pneumatic Tube Postal Commission said: "New York Streets were almost impassable -- New York business houses nevertheless received their important mail on time! The pneumatic tubes carried the mails."

For the time, the system was thoroughly modern, even high-tech, a subterranean network for priority and first-class mail powered by pressurized air. Only a few decades later it was mostly a dinosaur, made obsolete by the motor wagon and then the automobile.

The pneumatic tubes were introduced by the post office to deliver mail in large urban areas. The system used pressurized air to move a mail canister through an underground eight-inch cast-iron pipe.

" 'Mail shot from guns' may be an apt description," said Post Haste, an internal newsletter of the post office in 1950, adding that the metal carriers resembled heavy artillery shells.

"Unaware that this network exists," the newsletter said, "the ordinary citizen of New York nevertheless benefits from the rapid transmission of his more important mail through these subterranean channels."

The newsletter also explained that the tubes were lubricated to facilitate the passage of the containers by sending perforated steel cylinders filled with oil through the channels.

"I still remember those canisters popping out of the tube," said Nathan Halpern, a veteran postal worker, in an internal newsletter. "They were spaced one every minute or so, and when they came out, they were a little warm with a slight slick of oil."

At its greatest expansion, there were more than 56 miles of mail tubes on the East Coast delivering as many as 200,000 letters per tube every hour. (Legend has it that a live cat was sent through as a test in 1896.) Western Union also used pneumatic tubes, linking its main telegraph office to some of the exchanges.

When the system was first installed, pneumatic transport was considerably faster than horse-drawn wagon, then the most common vehicle for mail delivery. In New York City, two pipes were used along each route, one for sending, the other for receiving. The pipes were buried 4 to 12 feet underground, though in some places the tubes were placed within subway tunnels, parallel to the 4, 5 and 6 lines.

Each two-foot-long mail canister had felt and leather packing on each end to create an airtight seal, as well as four small wheels, which helped prevent the canister from becoming lodged at a junction in the pipes. (Records from the early 1930's indicate that there had been at least three incidents of malfunction.)

Each container was labeled to indicate the destination of its contents. Special delivery letters were delivered within one hour; regular letters within three.
About $4 million was spent on the construction in New York City. The original contractor was the Tubular Dispatch Company, which built the original pneumatic prototype for Philadelphia in 1893.

Construction of the tubes began in the late 1890's and they were in operation by 1898. Before the end of the original 10-year contract, the pneumatic service was taken over by the American Pneumatic Service Company, which later became the New York Mail & Newspaper Transportation Company.

Charles Emory Smith, the former postmaster general, predicted in The Brooklyn Eagle in 1900 that one day every household would be linked to every other by means of pneumatic tubes. Around the turn of the century, there were even several proposals to build a system between North America and Europe.

The service continued in most cities until 1918, when the high costs of maintenance -- $17,000 per mile per year -- were thought to be impractical for the small volume of mail transported. When a post office moved, for example, the streets had to be dug up to reroute the tubes. And the pneumatic service began to pale next to the new technology of the motor-wagon, which could deliver mail two to three times faster than a horse-drawn cart with equal or greater volume and more than 10 times the volume of a pneumatic tube, while only slightly slower.

Subsequent improvements in the speed of the motor-wagon and its successor, the automobile, signaled the end of the pneumatic tube. In New York City, because of the high population density and a great amount of lobbying from contractors, the tube system remained in operation until Dec. 1, 1953, when it was suspended pending a review. Later that month, the post office ended the contract. The New York Mail Company, the owner of the pipes, made several attempts to sell the defunct system -- offering it to Con Edison and the United Parcel Service -- with no success.

Grand Central Ca. 1910

nobody@flickr.com (syscosteve) — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 12:42:40 -0700

syscosteve posted a photo:

New York circa 1910. "Incline from subway to suburban concourse, Grand Central Terminal." 8x10 glass negative, Detroit Publishing Co.

Looks best viewed on black

Brooklyn Bridge with signs

nobody@flickr.com (syscosteve) — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 08:36:15 -0800

syscosteve posted a photo:

The Brooklyn Bridge Promenade and Manhattan Terminal in 1907 -

Broome Street , Manhattan. (October 07, 1935)

nobody@flickr.com (syscosteve) — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 19:49:27 -0800

syscosteve posted a photo:

Abbott, Berenice,Photographer

Created Date: October 07, 1935

Medium: Gelatin silver prints

Two row houses are dwarfed by the Grocers Warehouse Corporation building behind it, trucks in the foreground.

Automat, 977 Eighth Avenue, Manhattan. (February 10, 1936)

nobody@flickr.com (syscosteve) — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 19:18:56 -0800

syscosteve posted a photo:

Automat, 977 Eighth Avenue, Manhattan.
Man takes pie out of Automat, stone counters and walls below metal and glass display

Creator: Abbott, Berenice

City Hall Subway Kiosk ca 1903

nobody@flickr.com (syscosteve) — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 19:48:17 -0800

syscosteve posted a photo:

Broadway and 5th ca 1905

nobody@flickr.com (syscosteve) — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 19:38:47 -0800

syscosteve posted a photo:

Alternate Title: Broadway and 5th Avenue, New York.

Published Date: 1905

Specific Material Type: Prints

1905 by Detroit Publishing Co." "018524. UP."

flatiron 1905

nobody@flickr.com (syscosteve) — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 13:34:56 -0800

syscosteve posted a photo:

New York circa 1905. "Flatiron Building, Broadway and Fifth Avenue." Another view of everyone's favorite proto-skyscraper, at anchor in Manhattan. 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company

Flatiron Building ca. 1905

nobody@flickr.com (syscosteve) — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 13:34:55 -0800

syscosteve posted a photo:

New York circa 1905. "The Flatiron building." The iconic proto-skyscraper early in its life. Detroit Publishing Company glass negative

Rockafellerceneter 12-51933

nobody@flickr.com (syscosteve) — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 15:42:08 -0800

syscosteve posted a photo:

New York. December 5, 1933. "Rockefeller Center and RCA Building from 515 Madison Avenue." Digital image recovered from released emulsion layer of the original 5x7 acetate negative. Photo by Samuel H. Gottscho. View full size.

shoreline 52nd st.

nobody@flickr.com (syscosteve) — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 15:42:12 -0800

syscosteve posted a photo:

5th ave stage

nobody@flickr.com (syscosteve) — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 15:43:20 -0800

syscosteve posted a photo:

New York circa 1900. "A Fifth Avenue stage." 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company.

Submitted by Louise on Mon, 07/26/2010 - 4:12pm.
You wouldn't see these magnificent (if dangerous) horse carriages galloping up and down Fifth Avenue much longer at the time this photo was taken. 1900 was the year that the NY State Senate approved a bill allowing the Fifth Avenue Stage to run automobiles along the length of its newly-extended route (up to 110th St.) By 1903, the horse carriages had been retired for "motor buses."

This was a relief to the residents of the apartment blocks near the "big stable" of the Fifth Avenue Stage located uptown. The stables took up the whole block between 88th and 89th Streets, were four stories tall, and housed over 250 horses. Its neighbors were continually filing complaints with the city because of the "noxious odors", as well as perpetual stamping and neighing of horses in their stalls, which made sleep impossible.

Cross Chambers, with its shop cat in the window, 210 Fifth Avenue, was a 12 story building with the Cross business establishment on the four lowest floors, and "Bachelor Apartments" above. While considered imposing at the time of its opening, it was soon to be dwarfed by the first iron-framed "skyscraper," that would soon be constructed a block away. Construction of the Flatiron Building, at 175 Fifth Avenue, began in 1901 and was finished a year later. The Manhattan skyline would never be the same.

NY 102 years ago

nobody@flickr.com (syscosteve) — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 15:44:35 -0800

syscosteve posted a photo:

Manhattan circa 1908. "New York skyline." Part of an eleven-section panorama. 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company.

Eleanor Tierney at Starlight Park Ca. 1921

nobody@flickr.com (syscosteve) — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 15:41:54 -0800

syscosteve posted a photo:

June 1921. Eleanor Tierney at Starlight Park on the Bronx River at 177th Street. Eleanor, a Broadway chorus girl, married a banker and ended up in Larchmont. 5x7 glass negative, George Grantham Bain Collection.

for more photos of this park; cid-616b1f67315e9e01.office.live.com/self.aspx/LF4961P/Br...

Starlight Park in my Life
Submitted by p.j.boylan on Thu, 12/11/2008 - 11:50am.
I admire the candid of Ms. Tierney, but the background is most interesting. I knew Starlight Park more than a quarter century later. By then there were no remnants of roller coasters or the like. The arena had been converted to a bus barn by Third Avenue Transit( taken over and operated now by the government transit op.) Many of the stucco buildings with red tile roofs were either destroyed,falling down or abandoned playgrounds for kids. That pool she is standing beside had a large sandy beach area and was of monumental proportions. It was the length of a football field, oriented east-west. At the west end, beyond the paved promenade, was a retaining wall and the land fell off sharply to the Bronx River. When this photo was taken this was largely an area that was undeveloped.

The 180th Street Crosstown trolley (X route) went by and there was the West Farms junction of several trolley routes (after 1948 all buses) about a quarter mile away. The White Plains Road IRT elevated line with a Bronx Zoo destination had a stop another few blocks further west.

In the 1940s when I frequented the place, it was because I accompanied my father, who was a soccer buff, when he went there on Sundays to doubleheaders of the German-American Soccer league. Not withstanding the leagues moniker; the NY Hungarians, Praha, Savoia, Hakoah, Eintracht, Brooklyn Wanderers, Bronx Scots, my old man's former team the NY Corinthians, and a plethora of teams with non-teutonic associations made up the league. There were professional leagues that had a larger territorial range, but almost all of the players in those days were either immigrants, or their first generation progeny. The GA was the MISL of that time. There was no real money to pay living wages to soccer players so either industrial teams, like the Uhrich Truckers in St. Louis, or semi pros - like those from the G-A league were the source of the best players in the country. Yogi Berra, and Joe Garagiola who grew up on "The Hill" in St. Louis, were part of a similar world and played soccer for local Italo-American sides there as children and teens.

I know this seems strange, when the American goalie Brad Fridl pulls down 5 million bucks from Aston Villa in Birmingham in the UK Premier League, but until the Spaniards and Italians started offering whatever wages they would to get the best players, the British paid washers to professional soccer players. Ten pounds a week was the fixed rate in the forties for UK soccer players. Liverpool offered a NYPD sergeant named Miller, who was the G-A all star teams goalie, a contract. He would have had to have taken a substantial pay cut to have gone there. Foreign wage pressures, and the fixing of games by underpaid players has changed that forever. The Post War would change everything, but meanwhile the German-American League was the best we had.

In the early 1950s, I was at Randall's Island Stadium when the G-A League All Stars beat Kaiserslauten , the German Bundesliga champions, 2-0. So Starlight Park's large playing field, north of the pool site ruins, was, along with Sterling Oval, and a field across the road from Con Edison in the south Bronx, were the places where the best soccer in the US was being played.

As a young kid, I and the sons and daughters of the immigrants tore around the ruins playing games, built fires to roast spuds and marshmallows and the like, while our parents watched the games and relived their own athletic youths. Unfortunately, it wasn't all a halcyon time in the ruins for us. Charley, a 12-year-old acquaintance, was murdered by a sexual pervert there after swimming in the Bronx River.

I never knew the place in its heyday, and I wish I had been there to ride the roller coaster and swim in such an immense pool. Still, it provided a different set of experiences and meaning to another generation.

Good-Luck,
Peter J.

rainy times sq. 1941

nobody@flickr.com (syscosteve) — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 15:42:18 -0800

syscosteve posted a photo:

New York, March 1943. "Times Square on a rainy day." Medium-format nitrate negative by John Vachon for the Office of War Information.

tenement exterior 1905jpg

nobody@flickr.com (syscosteve) — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 15:43:55 -0800

syscosteve posted a photo:

New York City circa 1905. "Exterior of tenement." The longer you look at this, the more you'll see. 8x10 inch glass negative, Detroit Publishing Co.

thompson st. back ally

nobody@flickr.com (syscosteve) — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 15:42:23 -0800

syscosteve posted a photo:

February 1912. "Rear view of tenement, 134½ Thompson Street, New York City. Makers of artificial flowers live and work here." Photograph and caption by Lewis Wickes Hine

Veribest canned meats

nobody@flickr.com (syscosteve) — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 15:43:35 -0800

syscosteve posted a photo:

New York circa 1900. "John C. Graul's art store, 217 Fifth Avenue." 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company.