About Ephemeral New York

Ephemeral New York chronicles a constantly reinvented city through photos, newspaper archives, and other scraps and artifacts that have been edged into New York’s collective remainder bin. Here we remember forgotten people, places, and relics of the way New Yorkers used to live. We get a big kick out of present-day urban weirdness and idiosyncrasies too. 

The site is the creation of a magazine editor from the West Village who recalls stepping over winos to enter the Grand Union on Bleecker Street, a happily chaotic class packed with 35 other first graders at PS 41, and that Mays, not Whole Foods, was once the flagship shopping destination of Union Square. Sometimes wry and often wistful, she feels the presence of the city’s ghosts everywhere. 

All comments and (gentle) suggestions are welcome. 

Washington Square Village, 1970s. That slide is no longer there.