2nd pic: Times Square 1898-1900!

[tblue37]

Link to tweet

[Chicago1980]

1. Love history.

[My Pet Orangutan]

2. It was Longacre Square before the New York Times moved in in 1904.

[ornotna]

3. New York circa 1904. "Longacre Square."

Soon to be renamed Times Square after the recently completed New York Times tower seen here. 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company.

https://www.shorpy.com/node/7407

If you click the shorpy link then click "view full size" you won't be disappointed. The detail is amazing.

[Staph]

7. What an amazing photo!

George M. Cohan at the New York Theatre, with tickets at .25, .50, .75, and $1.

I want to visit Mme. Crane's Costumes!

[brooklynite]

4. When the NYC subway opened in 1904, Times Square was a LOCAL station...

...because nothing significant happened there.

[Renew Deal]

5. I wonder if this is the same Moth and The Flame story

Though this film is from 1938:

The overhead shot is also pretty amazing. NYC was blessed with good urban planning in Manhattan. I think the area on the bottom left (east side) was filled in with land.

[BigmanPigman]

6. I love cities based on a grid layout.

I have a horrible sense of direction but in NYC and Phila I rarely got lost or mixed up.

[Blue_true]

10. Looks like we are brothers from different mothers.

To call me an idiot at finding directions would be charitable. The only thing that is certain when I am in a new city is that I will get hopelessly lost before ultimately finding what I am looking for. But there are benefits, I have stumbled across wonderful food and colorful people many times while lost.

[Luz]

16. When my kids were small we moved to the dfw area. I was

forever getting lost. I would tell them we were NOT lost, we were simply on an unexpected adventure 😉

[Princess Turandot]

11. It's called the Commissioners' Plan of 1811...

A very important event in urban planning history, both revered and reviled, even now.

The NYC grid is said to have inspired Mondrian's Broadway Boogie-Woogie:

[Progressive Jones]

13. Chicago is on a grid, as well. nt

[Takket]

8. let's go allllllllllllllllll the way back......... to the Dutch

maps in this article date back to the first dutch settlement. they built a simple wall to keep out Native Americans. The former placement of this wall became Wall Street.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Amsterdam

The original map was redrawn in 1916... you can view it here, it is incredible detailed! Right down to each house. save the map on your computer and zoom in for detail......

[BigmanPigman]

14. Looks like a lot of private gardens and few houses. Nice!

[smirkymonkey]

9. Thank you for posting!

I never get tired of looking at these old photos. I could spend days doing nothing but poring over old photos of historic places and would probably even forget to eat. I find them endlessly fascinating.

[tblue37]

15. So do I!

[newdayneeded]

12. History

I love the site "historic aerials" you can go back in time of an area of map by clicking on different year aerial photos. Very cool!

[LAS14]

17. It seems like I have to add an extension to Chrome to use it. Is there a way around that? nt

[Bantamfancier]

18. Great photo.

I count 6 police officers. And 2 street sweepers.