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These stunning historical photographs show how New York City looked like in the 1880s. The images show the streets of NY, hustling crowds of Manhattan and the frolicking bathers of Coney Island. Men in the city are seen wearing suits and top hats, and women are wearing long dresses.
Wallace G. Levison captured these photographs in the late 19th century. He was a chemist and the founder of Departments of Mineralogy and Astronomy at Brooklyn Institute of Arts & Sciences in the latter half of the 19th century. He was also an avid photographer, using the new technology both as a scientific tool and a recreational activity.
#1 Jamie Swan jumps off a short stone wall at Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn, June 26, 1886
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#2 Crowds of men outside the New York Tribune building in lower Manhattan, Nov. 6, 1884
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#3 Uniformed officers in riding boots walk down a street, 1886
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#4 Mr. Stokes jumps off a wall in Fort Greene Park.Oct. 14, 1886
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#5 Nathan Abbott and a young girl walk through Copps Hill Cemetery.May 10, 1886
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#6 Girls jump off a stone wall in Fort Greene.May 22, 1886
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#7 An elephant from the Barnes Circus walks down Atlantic Street in Brooklyn June 1, 1891
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#8 J.M. Cornell jumps in the backyard at 314 Livingston Street.May 28, 1886
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#9 J.M. Cornell jumps in the backyard at 314 Livingston Street.May 28, 1886
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#10 Edith Poey jumps off a wooden pole onto the sand at Coney Island.May 15, 1887
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#11 Isabel Harter rides a tricycle while her sister Nellie rolls a hoop in Fort Greene.May 22, 1886
#12 Zelma Levison jumps in the backyard of her home at 314 Livingston Street.June 19, 1886
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#13 Zelma Levison and her aunt Jo Grimwood throw a ball back and forth on a lawn in Prospect Park.July 20, 1886
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#14 A group of young male bathers walk single file along the beach.Aug. 23, 1886
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#15 H.B. Leckler’s dog Mace poses atop a chair in Fort Greene.Dec. 9, 1886
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#16 Edgar J. Taylor jumps off a barrel.June 24, 1887
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#17 Maggie Ward stands on the end of a diving board at Coney Island.July 24, 1888
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#18 Miss Brown holds a cob of maize for a squirrel to eat.1888
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#19 A woman swings on a rope at Coney Island.c. 1890
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#20 A man in a barrel does a push up at the beach.Sept. 8, 1897
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#21 Dr. Ernest Palmer and wife join hands to make a bar so that their dog can jump over it.April 15, 1900
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#22 Gertrude Hubbell, Ruth Peters, and Mildred Grimwood play near the water at Arverne, Queens.Sept. 8, 1897
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#23 Two well-dressed women playing lawn tennis next to a lake, New York, 1880s
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#24 A young black boy pulling the reins of a horse drawn coach owned by the Surf Ave. Stage Co., alongside the boardwalk at Coney Island, 1884
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#25 Seven young girls incl. Isabel and Nellie Harter, Nellie and Edie Dwight, Zelma Levison and Edie Swan standing on a wall with two women, New York, 1886
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#26 Mildred Grimwood jumps in the backyard at 314 Livingston Street as brother Victor Grimwood and pal Zelma Levison look on.June 20, 1886
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#27 Five men compete in a walking race.June 27, 1886
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#28 Ethel Merritt jumps in the air at Coney Island.June 11, 1886
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#29 An actor talks with bathers on the beach.Aug. 24, 1886
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#30 Acrobats perform a balancing act on the backs of a pair of horses as crowds watch at Coney Island’s Dreamland
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#31 A woman swims at the beach.Sept. 8, 1897
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#32 Italian immigrants walking down a narrow sidewalk near the Fulton Ferry, New York, 1880s
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#33 Men walking by the statue of George Washington on Wall St, New York, 1884
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#34 Five girls who will be competing in a swimming match posing by the shoreline at Coney Island, Brooklyn, NY, 1887
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#35 A boy leans against a bicycle in the foreground as people in the background ride their bikes through the arch at Prospect Park during a bicycle parade, Brooklyn, New York, June 15, 1895.
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#36 People hanging around outside railroad station, which has signs on it saying TILLY FOSTER MINES, New York, 1889
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#37 A foreman and two workers preparing a house at 314 Livingston St. for moving, New York, 1889
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Written by Aung Budhh
Husband + Father + librarian + Poet + Traveler + Proud Buddhist. I love you with the breath, the smiles and the tears of all my life.
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Jumping became the height of fashion once it was invented in the 1880s.
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That’s a lot of jumping.
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Can we go to Fort Green and jump around as the people did back then
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I came here to question that and am not surprised that’s the only comment here. Was jumping a way of stunting in photos back in the day?
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Probably a good way to show off your gear’s fastest shutter speed at the time.
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Can someone please explain the jumping on all these pics? Was jumping some kind of hobby back then?
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How bad would it smell if I woke up in 1880 New York City?
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In 1880, there were over 100,000 horses in New York City producing between 15 and 35 pounds of waste each. Wealthier residents could afford to have their refuse carted away, but entire neighborhoods were plagued by foul odors and waste overflow. This crisis peaked in the 1870s when an equine virus killed hundreds of horses daily, adding to the already noxious smells. The Department of Street Cleaning was formed in 1881 to combat this issue, and the rise in public health awareness and sanitation helped improve New Yorkers’ quality of life. The car’s popularity made many stables obsolete by 1920. Despite improvements, some areas of the city still have distinct smells, particularly in the summer and around horse-drawn carriages in Central Park.
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Those 80ish years of living from the time the Brooklyn bridge was built (the first suspension bridge in the world, 1880s) to a man on the moon must have been wild
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It reminds me of the quote about Miss Blankenship from Mad Men: “She was born in a barn in 1898.” She died on the thirty-seventh floor of a skyscraper. She’s an astronaut.”
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Although people talk about how fast technology is moving today, and the ability to have everything in your pocket is amazing, I think it’s hard to argue it’s more revolutionary than if you lived from the 1880s to the 1960s or 1970s. Cars, jet planes, and spacecraft replaced horse-drawn carriages and steam trains. In the middle class, travel has been democratized from multi-day steam ships across the Atlantic to doing it in hours. Through telephones and fast communication, the world is becoming more interconnected. The fabric of one’s life in a city is literally transforming in a way that even NYC has not seen before.
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Often, I try to envision myself in the context of the time, not knowing what was to come, and how today might or might not feel. It’s easy to think of today as the end of a line and history as a natural progression. We were coming out of a devastating war and pandemic a hundred years ago. People who lived through the Civil War were as close in time to those who lived through Vietnam then. Did people lose? Optimistic? Thankful? Desperate to survive? It’s time to visit the library again…
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There are still places living in the past in the present, which is even more shocking. It’s amazing how quickly technology can change our lives
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Humanity experienced the most dramatic transformation of the physical world during the 20th century.
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During the 21st century, humans will have experienced the most dramatic transformation of the social fabric in history.
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smoke, no smoke, smoke, no smoke
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