Time stands still in this May 1946 photo, which captures two “old timers,” as the caption states, immersed in a game of chess while surrounded by the beauty and tranquility of Central Park.
Perhaps they were among the former residents of Central Park’s Depression-era Hooverville, a pop-up city of shacks and forgotten men?
It’s part of the digitized American Cities collection at the National Archives, which deserves a long thumbing through.
Chess wasn’t the only game older men played in New York City parks. Bocce courts ruled parks in Italian-American neighborhoods, with groups of often Italian Americans crowding green spaces in Lower Manhattan.
Tags: central park, Central Park boulders, chess players Central Park, chess players city parks, chess players New York City, New York in the 1940s, old men NYC
February 6, 2017 at 10:14 am |
i love this photo
February 6, 2017 at 3:17 pm |
Me too. Wonder what their story is.