It looks more like a Southern plantation mansion than a house in Manhattan.
But historians believe this daguerreotype shows a private home and country-like white sloping fence on Bloomingdale Road, once a main thoroughfare extending from Broadway on today’s Upper West Side.
The daguerreotype is thought to date to October 1848 or earlier (that’s just a few generations before the Dakota came along!), making it the oldest known photographic image of New York City.
Found in New England, the image was traced to Manhattan with the help of a curiously written note tucked behind the daguerreotype plate, wrote Jennifer 8. Lee in a 2009 New York Times article:
“This view, was taken at too great a distance, & from ground 60 or 70 feet lower than the building; rendering the lower Story of the House, & the front Portico entirely invisible. (the handsomest part of the House.) The main road, passes between the two Post & rail fences. (called, a continuation of Broadway 60 feet wide.) It requires a maganifying glass, to clearly distinguish the Evergreens, within the circular enclosure, taken the last of October, when nearly half of the leaves were off the trees.
—May 1849. L. B.”
It was sold by Sotheby’s for $62,500 in 2009—a fascinating glimpse of a pre-urbanized Upper West Side.
Tags: Bloomingdale Road New York City, daguerreotypes New York City, New York in 1848, Oldest photo of New York City, Rural Manhattan, Rural Upper West Side, Upper West Side 19th century
Ephemeral New York 
November 16, 2012 at 2:39 pm |
Fascinating! I’d love to see more daguerreotypes of NYC from this period.
November 16, 2012 at 3:58 pm |
I’m putting together a future post on the daguerreotype craze of the 19th century. New York was full of studios!
November 16, 2012 at 4:50 pm |
Great photo (and post). It fascinates us partly because when we think NYC, we think urban and this is the opposite of that. History is wonderful.
November 17, 2012 at 6:24 pm |
Fantastic !!!
November 17, 2012 at 7:43 pm |
I love it – grass and trees and meadows where today mostly cement is growing. I am wondering about the connection between Bloomingdale dept store name and location and this address? any suggestions?
November 18, 2012 at 4:06 pm |
I’d love to go back here even further unfortunately there would be no photos, only artist renderings…still love to see what’s out there going back to Amsterdam days…
December 28, 2012 at 12:03 pm |
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