Looking toward Battery Park from the water

Postmarked 1903, this vintage view of Battery Park—from a ferry from Staten Island or Governor’s Island?—is kind of the daytime opposite of this one.

An enchanted city’s nighttime skyline

The East River, South Street Seaport, and lower Manhattan skyscrapers aglow in shades of firecracker-red, yellow, blue, and pink.

The back of this postcard describes the skyline as “a most awe-inspiring sight.” Pretty tough to disagree.

Give my regards to Broad Street

An 1825 view of Wall Street from Broad Street, from Valentine’s City of New York Guide Book, published in 1920. Trinity Church is in the center, while a Presbyterian church and Simmons’ Tavern are on the right. (Note the cute hound dashing across the road.)

 

This drawing was done before the Great Fire of 1835, which destroyed about 700 buildings in lower Manhattan. Simmons’ Tavern, which looks like it was made from wood, may have been one of them.

“Shirts, Drawers, Over-alls, etc.”

Carpenters, printers, sign painters, jobbers…just the kind of workers who kept New York City growing in the mid-1800s when this picture was taken somewhere in lower Manhattan.

I wonder what you could get from the drug broker back then and how easy it was to get it.