Framed or unframed, desk size to sofa size, printed by us in Arizona and Alabama since 2007. Explore now.
Shorpy is funded by you. Patreon contributors get an ad-free experience.
Learn more.
February 1940. Shoppers on a wet winter day in the business district of Iowa City. View full size. 35mm nitrate negative by Arthur Rothstein. Greetings to his daughter, Shorpy fan Annie Rothstein-Segan. "Dad would have loved to know that you feature his pictures so often," she writes. Thanks and Happy Holidays!
Below is the same view from May of 2023.
Notice the glass sidewalk bricks in the left of the photo. Embedded in the concrete and lit from below, they used to be quite popular in big cities. I've seen them as far North as Saskatoon Saskatchewan and South as far as Tupelo Mississippi. Pity none of them seem to work any longer.
[They also used those to let the sun in to illuminate basements. - Dave]
On Shorpy:
Today’s Top 5