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Certain Views of New York City As Seen by Our Ancestors and by Us
The New York Historical Society, New York, 1948, Wraps, , , Very Good44 pp. and about as many photographic illustrations. A sticker shadow and light rubbing and discoloration to edges of wraps, else fine. '' 'And Oloffe bethought him, and he hastened and climbed up to the top of one of the tallest trees, and saw that the smoke spread over a great extent of country; and as he considered it more attentively, he fancied that the great column of smoke assumed a great variety of marvelous forms, where in dim obscurity he saw shadowed out palaces and domes and lofty spires, all of which lasted but a moment, and then faded away, until the whole rolled off, and nothing but the green woods were left.' And that is why, according to Irvings's Knickerbocker, Manhattan was chosen as the site of the settlements. If Oloffe the Dreamer could come back to the World Capital which he knew as the little Dutch village of New Amsterdam, he would be amazed that the reality so far surpasses his wildest dream of the future city. It is both amusing and instructive for us to look down one of our modern canyons where the world's business is transacted and, on the same page, to see what that very view was like a hundred or two hundred years ago.These contrasts have been made possible for your pleasure by the use of a selection of the precious paintings and drawings from our collections and of the superb recent pictures made by our official photographer, Mr. Charles T. Miller, all given historical meaning by the commentary of Mr. A. J. Wall, Jr., our Assitant Director.''--from the introduction by R. W. G. Vail, Director. Views of New Amsterdam in 1626; New Amsterdam in 1650; A southeast prospect of New York; New York, 1793, from the Hudson River showing the Battery to Trinity Church; The City and Harbor of New York taken from Mount Pitt; The Government House, 1797; Broad Street and Federal Hall, 1797; Wall Street and City Hall, 1798; The Tontine Coffee House, about 1800; Wall and William streets, 1800; Looking south on Park Row, about 1800; Broadway and St. Paul's Chapel, about 1812; View of Broadway, showing Grace and Trinity Churches, about 1812; View of Broadway and City Hall, 1819; Wall Street in 1834; East River Shore North from 61st Street as Seen from Blackwell's Island, 1851; New York from the Latting Observatory, 1855; Blackwell's Island from East 86th Street Landing, 1862; Herald Square in 1898; View of Lower New York from New Jersey about 1900; all sie by side with the requisite modern view from 1948.
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