Before & After - Brooklyn Bridge

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The Brooklyn Bridge is so unique and beautiful thanks partly to its over-engineering. The diagonal cables that run from the towers down to the road deck actually don't serve the make the bridge any stronger, but over the years they've become one of the many iconic features of the crossing. Recently, old bridges like this one have come under scrutiny as the deteriorating infrastructure in the United States becomes a larger issue. Fortunately, much of the aforementioned over-engineering has helped keep the the main span of Brooklyn Bridge is relatively good shape. What hasn't fared as well are the approach ramps, which are currently undergoing a multi-year rehabilitation. In today's photo you can see that this parking lot on the Brooklyn side has been commandeered by this construction project as a staging place for some of their materials.

Also of interest is how much that sliver of Manhattan skyline has changed since 1982. 8 Spruce Street (AKA New York by Gehry, formerly Beekman Tower)has taken a domineering spot on the north end and of course One World Trade Center (AKA 1 WTC, formerly Freedom Tower) has replaced the Twin Towers.

Photo source:   Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, HABS.

Before & After - 1st Avenue at 61st Street

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I love this photo because, unlike so many of the other Before & After posts, this one is completely unremarkable in terms of subject matter. While other photos have focused on popular neighborhoods or landmarks, this image is just a simple everyday street scene on the Upper East Side in the late 1930's. Of course I also love how persistant the building in the center has been over the decades! The creator of the original image is Walker Evans, a prolific photographer who is well known for his Depression-era work for the Farm Security Administration. His work for the FSA (approximately 1,000 large format negatives) is the only portion of his portfolio in the public domain as the rest of his work was handed over by his estate to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Photo source:  Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA/OWI Collection.

Before & After - SoHo at Mercer Street & Broome Street

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Throughout the 1940's and 1960's the neighborhoods that would later become SoHo and Little Italy were under a constant threat of demolition due to the unrelenting power of Robert Moses and his plan to build the Lower Manhattan Expressway. Though this part of Manhattan is now an expensive and chic neighborhood, that was hardly the case 50 years ago when the former factory hotbed was in a deep localized depression. The expressway plan was aggressively pursued by Moses and it was only thanks to the tireless efforts of preservationists like Jane Jacobs that LOMEX, as it was known, was finally derailed. However the plan made it far enough that many individuals photographed the cast iron facades of Broome Street and other surrounding blocks, anticipating their demise. This is one such photo. Thanks to the thoughtful urban planning of Jane Jacobs and others we now have the opportunity to enjoy a renewal in this unique architectural neighborhood.

Photo source:  Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division.

Before & After - Mott Street

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For more than 100 years Mott Street has been the unofficial Main Street of New York's Chinatown. And based solely on these photos all that seems to have happened in those 100 years is the installation of a crosswalk light. Other than that, the block is startlingly unchanged. The majority of the buildings on the west side of the street remain with only a few new coats of paint and some new windows. Even the brand new stuff like the shiny Citibank building on the east side loosely mirrors the original building with its wrap-around signage.

Photo source:  Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

Before & After - Madison Square Park & Flatiron Building

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If you've ever stood and waited for an order at Shake Shack in Madison Square Park, you may have noticed a large dead tree with its own little fenced-off patch of land. Some may have written it off as just another in a long line of crazy art installations in the park, but they're wrong: It really is just a big dead elm tree in the midst of an otherwise immaculately maintained park. The reason it's still there, according to a 1995 New York Times article, is as a nest for squirrels.

Now, what I love about today's photo is that we have an opportunity to see the tree before it was trimmed back to its current sad state; it's right there near the middle of the image. Of course the trunk is noticeably bulkier in the modern image, but you can clearly see the original tree in the 1905 photo as it follows the same path. You can also notice that the fountain changed. The current one is a modern reproduction of the original from the mid 1860's. Apparently that original fountain didn't make it to the early 20th Century.

This photo also features the Flatiron building. I hear it's quite popular.

Photo source: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

Before & After - Broadway, The Canyon of Heroes

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Though Broadway enjoys many different nicknames as it meanders up Manhattan, the most famous might be "The Canyon of Heroes". Between Bowling Green and City Hall the street is both narrow and flanked by very tall, classic-looking office buildings. This combination creates one of the most famous stretches of road in American history. Serving as host to countless ticker-tape parades over the last hundred years, these few blocks typically just serve as a funnel for thousands of tourists who come to gawk at our big bronze bull.

Photo source:  Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division.