Color photos of New York City in the early 1940s

Paul Nachman writes:

You will probably appreciate these.

LA replies:

Nice photos. Seeing color photography from the early 1940s is something. In a part of our brains, we don’t think of the world of the early 1940s, the period of the war, as having existed in color. We think it existed in black and white. But, as these photos show us, somewhat to our surprise, it was a color world, just like ours.

If you like seeing New York City at its best, I recommend The Naked City, a police detective movie from the late 1940s. It has many shots of Manhattan at its absolute peak, before the glass boxes made their appearance in the 1950s. The cityscape is central to the movie.

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September 15

Dean Ericson writes:

Look, and marvel!—the streets of Manhattan filled with well-dressed, fit white people (even the bums!). Would that they would return.

LA replies:

Ten thousand dollars at the drop of a hat
I’d give it all gladly
If our lives could be like that.

(Bob Dylan, “Bob Dylan’s Dream,” 1963)

Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 14, 2011 05:52 PM | Send