Friday, February 09, 2007

1961-2007 -- 45 years in NYC

Graeme Goldsworthy was a lecturer at Moore College in Sydney when I was a student there from 1995-1997. I made contact with him yesterday to show him This Post from an appreciative American Pastor in California.

Graeme kindly replied to my email. He let me know that he too spent some time in NYC. He was here in 1960-61 working as a minister out of a hostel kind of near where I currently live. Corner Bleeker and Mulberry St.

He sent me this Picture of the building he worked in 1960-61. And he ask me to see how it had changed in 45 years.

I went to NYU today, and walked past up Bleeker St. Here is the same site in 2007:

Click on the pics if you want to make them larger.

I notice seven things:

1. How cool is the difference between the two cars in front? Chevy to VW.
2. There must be a fire hydrant behind the two cars, and it has not been moved in 45 years. Hence the gap between the two cars and the next one.
3. The owners of the building have doubled the size of the building since 1961.
4. Notice the windows – the building has been turned, I think, into apartments.
5. The one way streets have not changed, nor the base of the lamp post.
6. Someone has planted trees since 1961.
7. Here is what I found most fascinating: That’s a subway stop on the right, on both pics. It is the entrance in 2007 to the Uptown 6 Local Train. It was, in 1961, called Lexington Ave IRT (which you can see if you look closely in Graeme's Pic) – but still the same train.

I love this kind of stuff.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

oh how fun is that! very cool!

My favourite part is the tree :)
...dunno why really, its just kinda cool to think of someone planting it, it growing, etc...and all not realising such a comparison would be made...

Anonymous said...

The IRT stands for "Interborough Rapid Transit," and was one of the original private subway lines, along with IND (Indepandent Subway) and BMT (Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit). These labels were still visible when Aunt S and I came to NYC in the late '70s.

Martin Kemp said...

Nice post. The idea would make a great book. No words, just page after page of then and now pictures. Nice insight into GG too, what a sentimental kind of guy.

michael jensen said...

Wow, I stared at these photos way too long...

and props to GLG.