Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Street Scenes: Downtown Manhattan, 1980

RIP—The Twin Towers.

Kaleidoscopic culture—Chinatown is a vastly lively part of the city, colorful in every way. All photos clickable to enlarge.

Hanging out downtown—Clotheslines between buildings.

Get all your ducks in a row—Easy to do in a Chinatown storefront.

Comparing apples to orangesAnd lemons and limes, too. Chinatown fruit vendor.

Orange Zest—One of the earliest Honda models imported to the USA, the 600 coupe.

Living Large—The Empire State Building in the distance.

Kissing cousins—Typical New York City parking! 1969 Buick Skylark meets 1980 Oldsmobile.

Chauffeur's day off—Early sixties Bentley S3 parked at the curb in Little Italy.

Deco tour de force—The Chrysler Building, one of the most exuberant expressions of Art Deco architecture, gleams in the background of this photo of downtown turn-of-the-century brick and brownstone rowhouses.

17 comments:

  1. Great work - complete with line dancing ducks lol

    I love Comparing Apples to Oranges... it reminds me of San Francisco.

    And seeing the Twin Towers, an eerie reminder of a more innocent time - before their demise.

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  2. WE [NEW YORKERS] WILL NEVER FORGET WHAT THOSE #&%^$@#$^& DID. SOMEDAY IN THE VERY NEAR FUTURE THEY'LL GET THEIRS.HOW FAST SOME HAVE FORGOT THE TWINS.I WAS IN NYS AT THE TIME THIS HAPPEN. ANOTHER PEARL HARBOR.
    LETS TALK PICTURES. LOVE THE CLOTHESLINES. I ALWAYS WANTED TO GO TO THE TOP OF THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING. IT'S NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN NOW. I COULD NEVER LIVE THERE BUT IT'S A FUN PLACE TO VISIT.WHAT'S GOOD FOR ONE IS NOT GOOD FOR ANOTHER. I'LL TAKE THE COUTRY WITH NATURE ANYTIME.PEACE AND QUIET. RIGHT MARE?

    GRANNY

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  3. What a time capsule! I love the picture of the Honda 600 Coupe. On my first trip to Los Angeles in the Fall of 1974 I stayed with a couple I'd met that summer at Fire Island. In their stable they had a coupe just like this, along with a 600 sedan and a then almost new Civic. That coupe was like riding in an amusement park ride -- the Wild Mouse? -- and was pretty scary. The 600 sedan was a bit more substantial and the Civic was a real car.

    I also like the pic of the cars in the alley -- including the hump-back Seville!

    And your shots of the iconic buildings of New York -- WTC, Empire State, Chrysler -- they all make me wonder how I got so lucky as to actually live here!

    Paul, NYC

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  4. it's fun to think about the fact you were in the city when I was taking these photos. we could even have passed each other in a club or on the sidewalk.

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  5. Well, we'll probably never have the answer to that! But it does make one stop and think -- what if we had met and discovered our love of all things automotive -- would we have been friends for 30 years or drifted apart as time and circumstance took their, well, toll is perhaps too strong a word. I withdrew from the world a lot starting in 1985 when things got really bad -- it took me about 10 years to see that, while many of my friends were gone, I was still here -- and I re-entered the world!

    And I'm glad I did because in the state of mind I was in from 1985-95 I probably would enver have gotten a computer and never discovered the artandcolour blog!

    Paul, NYC

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  6. Predestination or Free Will? Makes one wonder - so many different paths and steps for all of us to arrive at this one location. Glad I did though.

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  7. that's really one of the deep questions I ponder—the path I've lived and how I got to where I am. At any point, the slightest change could have changed the outcome 100%.

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  8. I just watched a "Friends" episode where they all imagined different paths in life -- Monica still fat, Phoebe a high-powered stock broker, Chandler a writer for Archie Comics, etc. Funny that that episode should be on on the day we're talking about the roads taken or not taken. Spooky!!

    Paul, NYC

    PS -- Of course it's fascinating to think of the possibilities and what might have been. All in all, I don't know what I'd change, if anything.

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  9. Sometimes I think I'd change everything. Sometimes I think i'd change just enough to be solvent now, lol. But I guess I wouldn't really change much at all.

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  10. If I even changed one little thing I wouldn't be the person I am today - I like who I am today, so I guess that means I wouldn't change anything.

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  11. Fire Island is about 25 minutes from me and down town is about 50 minutes, who know's if I might have bumped into any of you and not realize it.

    Folks, rent LOST!


    I would probably change a few things, but glad the donkey path led me to here, lol

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  12. Never been to Fire Island, or Provincetown, but I've spent decades downtown!

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  13. I moved to NYC in 1981 though I used to come here a lot in the 1970s. I like these pictures because they show gritty, plain NYC which is what most of us live in rather than (fake but pretty) Times SquareTM or SoHoor the like.

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  14. thanks, Ish. I almost used the word "gritty" in the title! It struck me as I was looking through the contact sheet how much more I was interested in shooting the "real" NYC even back then, rather than going for the glamorous shots, the beauty shots, of which NYC is full of subjects. I'm always amused to realize that the 1980 me was really the same person the 2010 me is, on the inside.

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  15. We're always the same on the inside -- you're you and I'm me -- that doesn't change no matter how the circumstances might change. After all, we started out as little children and now are, more or less, grown-ups. But the voice in my head sounds the same as it did in 1948 (well maybe 1950 or so). Even I wasn't verbal at birth!

    Paul, NYC

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  17. I had an awful experience with a cup of soup at one of those Chinese store front places. For some reason the beef wasn't able to go past my larynx and wondered what the hell I was eating. Meoooow, lol

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