Is this really Upper Broadway? It is if Times Square is your idea of upper—as it must have been to New Yorkers in 1905, about the time this postcard dates to.
Times Square at night is alive and electric: There’s the Times Building, behind it the Hotel Astor, and in the front part of the Metropolitan Opera House.
This photo from 1912 gives a clearer view of the same scene. Here’s a postcard that looks at the Times Building facing downtown in 1911.
Tags: Hotel Astor vintage postcard, Metropolitan Opera House vintage photo, Times Square 1905, Times Square at night, Times Square vintage postcard, Upper Broadway at Night 1900
Ephemeral New York 
September 23, 2013 at 2:37 am |
Great post. Of course, until about 1900, Broadway terminated at what is now Columbus Circle; the portion of Broadway north of there was called Bloomingdale Road. Columbus Circle was completed in 1905.
September 23, 2013 at 4:06 am |
You’re partly correct. Modern Broadway follows much of the path of the old Bloomingdale Road, but that name was no longer in use by this time. Above 59th Street, a street simply called The Boulevard was laid out in 1867, also mostly along the path of the old Bloomingdale Road. After Broadway was extended to meet the Boulevard, it was also sometimes called the Broadway Boulevard and was commonly called just Broadway by the 1890s. It was officially named part of Broadway in 1899, at which time several streets were combined to form most of modern Broadway.
So in 1905, the name Broadway did extend from Bowling Green to Inwood. Of course what we now think of as upper Broadway was still largely undeveloped at this point.
September 23, 2013 at 2:42 am |
Thanks Ron. When I hear Upper Broadway, I think Harlem, Washington Heights, Inwood!
September 23, 2013 at 2:48 am |
Me, too! And please keep them coming; I love your blog so much. Thanks for taking the time to do this, and do it so well.
September 23, 2013 at 2:53 am |
Thank you for reading! It is pure pleasure for me.
September 23, 2013 at 3:29 pm |
Interesting . . . The vertical sign on the right says, “HOSTERS”. I did a Google search and can find nothing. No reference at all. What was it, and why is there no record of whatever it was.
September 23, 2013 at 3:34 pm |
Yes, I did many searches for that name too. I’m thinking the postcard company changed it to Hosters to obscure the venue’s real name, so it didn’t look like an ad.
September 23, 2013 at 7:02 pm |
Here’s the actual photo the card was made from. It looks like it was indeed “Hoster’s” http://www.shorpy.com/files/images/4a17652a.jpg
Trow’s 1909 city directory lists the Hoster Brewing Company at 396 11th Ave, so this might have been a saloon associated with them.
September 23, 2013 at 7:10 pm |
Fabulous detective work MP! Thanks for sending the photo link.
September 23, 2013 at 4:01 pm |
There was a Hoster’s Brewing Company at the turn of the century in Ohio, and a lot of breweries of the period operated their own saloons to sell their product, but I can’t find any evidence they did business in New York.
October 14, 2013 at 3:42 pm |
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