News photographer George Bain spent much of his career taking photos of New Yorkers going about everyday life—and that included prepping for and celebrating Christmas.
In the captions of these 1910s photos, he didn’t explain where these trees started out before they were apparently dumped at Chambers Street, most likely, where the Erie Railroad had a ferry terminal.
They appear to be destined for the parlors of city residents (brought by a team of horses), who wouldn’t consider it Christmas without a beautiful tree to decorate and gather around.
[Photo: LOC]
Tags: Chambers Street Ferry Terminal NYC, Christmas Trees in New York City, George Bain Christmas New York City, New York in the 1910s Photos, Selling Xmas Trees NYC, Xmas Trees New York City
Ephemeral New York 
November 30, 2020 at 4:54 am |
A few days after American Christmas Dec 25, my mother would pick a discarded tree on Lower East Side street, sometimes with silver tassels dangling from it, and bring it home to decorate for our Ukrainian Christmas Jan 7. I always felt proud that in our poverty we had two Christmas’s to celebrate while the snobby American rich only had one. I’ll never forget it.
November 30, 2020 at 7:07 am |
Everybody had a tree; not just the “snobby rich”
November 30, 2020 at 6:58 am |
Very cool!
November 30, 2020 at 7:04 am |
Agree it isn’t Christmas without a tree. The bigger the tree is a direct result of a cocktail or two before shopping.
November 30, 2020 at 10:51 am |
Almost certainly the suppliers wandered around various forests to obtain the trees. Dedicated Christmas tree farms are a much more recent development.
Peter
November 30, 2020 at 11:45 am |
It’s hard to tell but the trees look taller than today
December 1, 2020 at 1:05 am |
Cool to see the sequence in the serial numbers. The gent in the bowler hat and white gloves (prominent in the center of the middle photo and again in the group center of the top) seems to be calling some shot around there. The multiple frames of the same scene really prompts my imagination…
December 1, 2020 at 12:31 pm |
Agree…if only the photos weren’t a little damaged!