PiP_Editions

Broadway and Seventh Avenue, looking north from 47th Street

An open stretch of pavement. A handful of automobiles. A gentleman pausing at the curb. At first glance, this extraordinary photograph captures Times Square taking a breath. Look closer, and an entire world begins to unfold.

A gentleman in a straw boater stands at the curb, cigar between his lips and one hand tucked casually into his pocket. Nearby, a small dog accompanies a passing pedestrian, and a woman in a decorated hat and long skirt walks along the sidewalk. Early automobiles share the street with horse-drawn vehicles, while streetcar rails sweep across the foreground. Farther up Broadway, the steel framework of an elevated railway crosses above the roadway—another layer of a city moving on foot, on wheels, and overhead. Amid all these intersecting journeys, the cigar smoker’s unhurried stance gives the photograph its wonderfully human center.

Overhead, the city’s appetite for spectacle is already unmistakable. A monumental “C and C” Ginger Ale advertisement dominates the skyline, its enormous letters and radiating framework rising above a painted offer of “Splits 15¢.” Beneath it, Floyd Grant & Co. announces auction sales “Every Monday” and promises, “We Buy or Sell Your Furniture.” Nearby, bold tire signs, striped awnings, wrought-iron fire escapes, and a barber pole fill the streetscape with discoveries.

The great Studebaker rooftop sign anchors the left side of the scene, while an advertisement farther down the street offers bargains in used automobiles. Here is a city embracing motor travel, even as its sidewalks remain lined with auction rooms, tailoring shops, and telegraph services. Numerous “To Let” notices add another revealing detail: behind the grand advertisements, everyday business carries on.

And everywhere, entertainment beckons. Posters advertise James T. Powers in Havana, The Queen of the Moulin Rouge, J. E. Dodson in The House Next Door, and Marie Dressler in The Boy and the Girl. Luna Park and Dreamland promise the pleasures of Coney Island, while the signs of Hotels Bayard, Cumberland, and Woodward rise among the surrounding buildings.

The hour is unknown, but the sense of a city momentarily unhurried is irresistible. This is a photograph to explore slowly: an intimate encounter with the people, commerce, fashions, and ambitions of early twentieth-century New York.

Bring home a Times Square that rewards every closer look.

This museum-quality fine art print is produced from a high-resolution master image developed directly from an original historic glass plate negative preserved in the archive of an important turn-of-the-century photographic news agency.

Past in Present owns the original historic glass plate negative from which this image is produced. All original negatives represented in the Past in Present collection are preserved in our private archive.

Past in Present is the exclusive source for fine art prints produced from this particular original negative and this specific historic image.