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Eugene de Salignac / Department of Bridges, Plant & Structures -New York City Municipal Archives via AP
July 29, 1908: Workers dig in the street along the sidewalk on the north side of Delancey Street.
New York City Municipal Archives via AP
Circa 1983-1988: 172 Norfolk Street, which is now the Angel Orensanz Foundation.
870,000 images of New York City and its municipal operations are being made available to the public on the Internet for the first time, The Associated Press reports .
The photos, some of which date back to the mid-1800s, come from the city's Municipal Archives collection, and they feature all manner of city oversight - from stately ports and bridges to grisly gangland killings.
Search the New York City Department of Records online gallery
It also features the results of an ambitious plan to photograph every building in the city in the mid-1980s. An earlier set of pictures of every city building taken between 1939 to 1941 has yet to be digitized.
Video: Take a look at the newest addition to the Manhattan skyline
Taken mostly by anonymous municipal workers, some of the images have appeared in publications but most were accessible only by visiting the archive offices in lower Manhattan over the past few years. Read the full story.
Eugene de Salignac / Department of Bridges, Plant & Structures - New York City Municipal Archives via AP
October 7, 1914: Painters are suspended from wires on the Brooklyn Bridge.
Works Progress Administration - Federal Writer's Project via New York City Municipal Archives via AP
A man hands a program to baseball legend Babe Ruth, center, as he is joined by his second wife Clare, center left, and singer Kate Smith, front left, in the grandstand during Game 1 of the 1936 World Series at the Polo Grounds in New York on September 30, 1936.
Borough President Manhattan - New York City Municipal Archives via AP
May 18, 1940: A man standing on 6th Ave. and 40th St reads a newspaper with the headline: "Nazi Army Now 75 Miles From Paris."
Detective Charles A. Carlstrom / NYPD Evidence Collection - New York City Municipal Archives via AP
1918: Police work a homicide after children found the body of Gaspare Candella stuffed in a burlap-covered drum out in the middle of a Brooklyn field.
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This is so cool. I love those old photos.
I do too!
Me three :)
J U M B O
Malted Milk
5 cents
(on W.40th Street corner)
What a tease to see the other 869,000 pics....lookng forward to a late evening when the site is not overloaded.
Download it to your computer so you can see it when you want! I LOVE THEM!!!!
Excellent photos, a must-visit website for me (although it appears to be overloaded at the moment)!
Kinda curious as to how a picture of North Korea's most recent rocket launch made it onto the left side of the Candella photo...strange, indeed...
Way cool
A great benefit to the public would be making these images available on a CD rom. I am sure people would pay money to own these pictures and be able to search them on their own time without an internet connection. I would buy one - even greater would be a picture book with a CD - they could make money from these images if the copyright on the images would allow this to be done.
NYC is such an amazing place with a rich history. What a city!
I could spend the rest of the week just looking at these. So much of what was in these pictures must have seemed too commonplace to excite interest when they were taken, but provide rich texture of the past to us today.
How long would it take to view every photo?!
assuming it took you 1 second to view each photo, and you took no breaks it would take you about 1.6 years to view every photo.
Pretty cool but the galley is hammered with traffic now and keeps dying.
Wow the painters suspended from wires photo is awesome!
I'd rather be the guy in the barrel than be in one of those painter's shoes!
how do you think that guy got into the barrel in the first place??
Spectacular! The history of NYC is amazing! So glad I live so close!
Great pics. Could modern New York City exist today without Federal subsidies?
I'm not from New York, but when I look at Google Earth for 6th ave and 40th st, it takes me to an intersection in Brooklyn. None of the buildings in the background look the same. Is that the correct address or is there another 6th and 40th in New York?
There is also a 6th Avenue and 40th Street in Brooklyn. So, specify New York, NY or Manhattan in Google Earth.
try 40h and 6th in New YorK, N.Y.
Found it thanks. I see that at least 3 of the building are still there. Just have to look down the right street. The building where that guy was standing is not however.
What i enjoy doing is, looking at these old pic's and going to Google maps...to see if the old buildings are still standing...and how much the area has changed...could spend days doing this...lol
Dammit I wanted to look!! Guess I'll have to try again later :(
Due to overwhelming demand, the New York City Municipal Archives Online Gallery is experiencing temporary difficulties. Please try again later.
Go figure......
870K photos and it still sucks!
The ballpark photo is awesome. Everyone dressed to the 9s to watch baseball. Every man in the photo is wearing a hat - except the Bambino.
In the picture look at the upper right hand corner, It looks like the man that was married to Marilyn Monroe. I can't remember his name. He was the Mr. Coffee man too.
Joe Dimaggio