A visit to West 43rd and Broadway in 1926, New York City


When I stumbled across this wonderful photo of New York City, at the Duke University website, I was curious as to the exact place and time. Of course, it was fairly easy to see that it was Manhattan, but with the help of my top history adventurer, I was able to pinpoint it with the kind of accuracy that allows me to walk into the picture. Walk with me.

It's 1926, and we're looking west-northwest on West 43rd Street towards Broadway, in Manhattan, New York City, New York. Nothing in Google Street View looks the same to me, so I had no idea where it was, but my friend is a wizard with looking up stuff, and old maps. He and I email back and forth, and ultimately he has to convince me. I'm very skeptical, and don't like "back in the day" or "circa" or some vague location, and neither does he. I want to know where and when, so I can set my way-back machine precisely.

By the way, in addition to my wanting to say thank you to Duke University for going to all of the trouble of scanning this photo and making it available, I want to tell you why they do it. This is from a collection of outdoor advertising. Yes, people study that. The images are always beautiful high-resolution photos, and they're indexed by the billboards. For example, this one has a billboard advertising the Paramount Theater, which will open, as you can see, in the fall.

The exact location and date of this photo was not specified by Duke, and of course that's what I was curious about. That it was New York City was obvious even to me, but the rest I assigned to my history adventuring wizard, who pinpointed the location, and even saw a wonderful clue to pinpoint the date. There are actually two in this photo.


The Paramount Building, which is still there by the way, was built in 1926. I would imagine that if this photo showed that corner you would see it under construction. The arrow on the billboard points to where it will be. It must have been amazing to see when it was brand new. The billboard says, "An acre of seats in a palace of splendor", "the whole wide world awaits its opening this fall". It's 1926.


What I found particular fascinating about this photo was the road being shared by a modern car, and also a horse-drawn mail wagon in 1926. In New York City! By the way, the reason that the people walking by are so blurry is because of the long exposure that the photographer did. Instead of the instantaneous stap that your iPhone does nowadays, the lens was open for quite some time, and if anything moved, it blurred. But this photo was not meant to record the people, it was meant to record the billboards, which it did brilliantly.


And here are some more billboards, which actually are fascinating. I looked up Harry Reser and his original Clicquot Club Eskimos, who had a popular radio program, too. Not sure what they're advertising there with Worthy, but since it's 1926 we can go see Ronald Colman in "Beau Geste" (there's the second clue for the date of this photo). Raisins in cakes! Now that's about as bad as raisins in cookies (should be chocolate chips, right?)! I've tried Beech-Nut gum, wasn't impressed - I wonder if they still make that, I can Google it later. To me a Wurlitzer made organs, but I guess pianos, too. Goodrich zippers?

Broadway and West 43rd Street has changed a lot since 1926, but it's still a busy place, and it's a good place to walk. I prefer walking in my imagination, so thank you for walking there with me!


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