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New York circa 1913. "Hotel Netherland, Fifth Avenue." 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size.
In those days, stealing architectural styles was good. And, of course stealing from multiple sources was even better. But, don't get me wrong -- I just love this over-the-top stuff. Good taste is so boring!
I wonder what the drivers of the horse-drawn vehicles thought during that year? Were they bitter, anxious, worried about their living?
When you look at Shorpy street scenes of say, 1910, the ratio of autos to horse-driven vehicles is reversed; here only a scant three years later, only a half-dozen or so horse carriages can be seen. How quickly the era of the horse faded!
Oh, and that electric delivery wagon is really cool. Thanks for another great one.
was a staple in our house back in the 1940's. The bread wrapper featured a field of 5-pointed stars on a dark field at either end. It was as good as any, and possibly better than some, such as the competing Silvercup, Bond, Sunbeam, Holsum and other brands sold in the NY Metro area.
What a difference seven years makes. The wide-open streets of 1906 are now thronged with automobiles, although parking is still easy.
WILLIAM H. HUME, architect, died in New York, November 11, 1899, aged sixty-five. He designed many important buildings in New York, among them the Emigrant Savings Bank, Hotel Netherland (built 1892), Hebrew Orphan Asylum, Scotch Presbyterian Church, and Colonial Clubhouse.
Such amazingly clear focus and wealth of detail in these old photographs. They are indeed a time machine allowing us to see back to an exact moment and place from the past frozen for us to view forever. A chapter in a book could not convey all that is captured in this photograph!
Wow, what a facade. No two storeys alike. On a 16-storey building, I count 11 cornice lines. "Exuberant" hardly begins to cover it. And then of course in the 1920s they tore it down. Its successor, the Sherry-Netherland Hotel, opened in 1927.
Their vehicle (I hesitate to call it something more specific) looks like a like a horse-drawn wagon, but where's the horse? Could this thing have been converted to self-propulsion?
[It's an electric delivery wagon. Note the battery box. - Dave]
Wouldn't you love to hear the sounds emanating from this scene?
That building is indeed the most beautiful thing I've seen. And I'm not saying that because I was born in the Netherlands.
I love the way the round turret just kind of grows out of the truncated corner!
When I was growing up in the 50's my mother used to tell me about the open-top double-decker buses on Fifth Avenue that she remembered from her childhood. This picture would be taken about ten years before she was born, but they were still using those buses (or some very much like them) in the 20's and 30's. Long gone by the 1950's, alas.
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