Radio Row photos

[Pete, WA2CWA]

Right click over image - CLICK Open image in new tab

[Sam KS2AM]

Right click over image - CLICK Open image in new tab

Those are two different images. The https://www.shorpy.com/files/images/eleventh_ave.jpg link is 5341 x 3705 pixels with lots of detail.  The other one is relatively low-res.

For whatever reason that link does not work until you have opened it the original page:

https://www.shorpy.com/node/1782
https://www.shorpy.com/node/1789

[W2PFY]

I get a 403 not found on that link. Pete on your copy, it is plainly seen, horse exhaust on the street.The guy in the white work clothes is scooping horse exhaust to put in the cart.With thousands of horses on the street in those days, it must have been a real problem? The horse exhaust products were probably just thrown into the Hudson or East Rivers.

I also found it interesting that there is a freight train however small, right in the middle of the city? It's also a steam engine, I just noticed that. I wuz looking for overhead wires to power it.  It must have been late in the day with those long shadows and perhaps late summer?

I once again took out my crayolas and colorized this picture.  

[Tom WA3KLR]

That horse-drawn wagon needs to get out of the way of the tram engine coming up.

[Sam KS2AM]

I get a 403 not found on that link. P  

OK. I've had a similar issues displaying images from this site when you have not loaded the images from the original post - strange. Anyways this should make thing clear...

This is from a two-part "Death Avenue" post from shorpy.com. Be forewarned, you may spend endless hours here looking at some of these images.

There are explanations here of the trains and the other stuff that your seeing in this pic.  Some discrepancies on whether this is 1910 or 1911, or 10th Ave or 11th Ave

https://www.shorpy.com/node/1782
https://www.shorpy.com/node/1789

You should be able to open the very high-res versions of these images from these pages.  Good luck and don't forget to come up for air.

Extra points for finding out "Who is Shorpy?"

[W2PFY]

Yes those are some good pictures & resolution. I guess considering the era, I should have known that cobble stones would be in use but it looked more like dirt in earlier posts! Thanks again.......

[w8khk]

Extra points for finding out "Who is Shorpy?"

The site is named after Shorpy Higginbothem, a teen-aged coal miner who lived 100 years ago.

[WBear2GCR]

1908

[Sam KS2AM]

Always looming over Radio Row was the Singer building which was the tallest building on earth from 1908-1909. It was demolished around 1968 making it also the tallest building ever to be demolished at that time.

If you're interested in skyscrapers you might want to check out this beautifully illustrated book on the construction of the Singer building. There is enough info here to build your own. :-)  https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=gri.ark:/13960/t3sv0525r&view=1up&seq=5  

The book has a great tip on how to fix a building foundation that's not deep enough.  

[Sam KS2AM]

Hey kid, yeah you.  I got a radio that will make you the biggest strapper on any band.  No money down.  Doesn't hurt to look. C'mon in sport.

[Opcom]

 ^^^

ahh those seem to be far better more civilzed days, though life was not so easy or safe.

[KA3EKH]

Like the bin full of tubes in the front window. Going to assume that they are bad tubes but looking at them see what appears to be a scoop in the top of the bin. Perhaps Blan was selling radio tubes in bulk? Something like a scoop full of 01A for a buck?

[wb1ead]

Hi All..love seeing these pics Sam..in the Blan Radio Man pic is that a young Edward G Robinson on the left going in for an audition for another "gangsta" movie.?.maybe that's an acting academy next door..what is Blan holding.?.perhaps a defunct chunk of hook up wire.?.yes that stash of tubes is most interesting because of the scoop..
                    TNX again for the pics Sam and the rest of the guys with theirs..73 de DAVE WB1EAD

[Sam KS2AM]

Hi All..love seeing these pics Sam..in the Blan Radio Man pic is that a young Edward G Robinson on the left going in for an audition for another "gangsta" movie.?.maybe that's an acting academy next door..what is Blan holding.?.perhaps a defunct chunk of hook up wire.?.yes that stash of tubes is most interesting because of the scoop..
                    TNX again for the pics Sam and the rest of the guys with theirs..73 de DAVE WB1EAD

Edward G. may be a graduate of the Billiards "Academy" upstairs.  C'mon up kid, I'm not very good at the game with my bum leg and all, but I'll spot you a couple of balls, maybe a friendly wager to make it interesting ?

[WBear2GCR]

BLAN was still around when I was a young teen going down to Canal Street, iirc.

Obviously not in the original location.

[W3RSW]

Yeah.  No twin towers even in the imagination.
I've never seen them in person.  They weren't there the last time I was in the city in the late fifties / early sixties, and intending to go back some day - now will never be.

But oh the memories.  I bought a telescope in radio row for $50, my whole trip allotment.
Had to borrow stay-on money from sisters.  Both lived in the village, oldest one a public RN for the city, youngest worked for Atlantic Mutual Life.    Best man to be lived in Jackson Heights and commuted into Brooks Brothers where he was in
"samples hats and shoes."   BMOC fer sure. I was impressed.  We'd get up in the morning and his girlfriend Aggie Bighter (I kid you not) would shove an orange juice and gin into your hand and say 'good morning.'  

- yeah,  Several trips to NYC in those days, felt like a native.
First trip was HS teacher sponsored for a long weekend including all the tours, Empire State bldg., bowery, statue of liberty, show and Jack Silverman's night club where we were all assumed to be 18 and bought real drinks.  Still have the group photo.
Later trips including younger sister's wedding, some a lot more serious. ..first love stuff..

But life moved on.

nuf of that,- bore you to death.  I sure like the pictures and sites that you guys have put up.  It'd kill me to have to look at same city area in the '60's.  - "you can't go back."

[WA2SQQ]

A bit off topic, but the Shorpy site has some great photos of the Atwater Kent factory outside Philadelphia. I’ve downloaded and printer several. You can even do a search for your city or state and discover some incredible photos.

[W2NBC]

Wouldn’t it be cool to picture yourself driving in midtown Manhattan on your way down to “Arrow” for some 40’s ham gear?

Maybe you can:

https://youtu.be/yHe_d2hUVnA

[Tom WA3KLR]

Thanks Jeff. Lots of jaywalkers, no painted crosswalks, must have been a lot of pedestrian hits. NO MOBILE ANTENNAS SEEN!

[KA3EKH]

Enough of the rosy picture already! No TV, No Internet, Air Conditioning was almost unheard of and minimum wage was like forty cents an hour for the entire decade.
I was to Canal street or what ever “radio row” or what it was called back in the late seventies and all I remember was a lot of over priced stores selling junk like consumer radios that were returns.
If we are all going to go down memory lane let do it with something that’s way better like talking about how wonderful the old Hara complex was at Dayton.
But wait, I think I trashed the Hara arena in another thread with the Great 2011 septic Eruption.
I know it often appears that maybe I am off my meds, but somehow think its too easy to think things were so good in the past and somehow forget that things are not all that bad today. After all with modern Mosfets and technology we can build a two-thousand-watt transmitter that you can carry on your back. Try that back in 1948

Dayton in 2011

[Sam KS2AM]

Radio Row in NYC was really only the area of the current WTC and existed from the 1920's to the 1960s.  After they were expropriated, the stores that decided to stay in business scattered to different areas that are not "Radio Row". Canal Street is many blocks away from the WTC area and as for a major radio presence, as someone once said "Forget it Jake, its Chinatown"  

Some street maps of the Radio Row area before and after:

[WBear2GCR]

Enough of the rosy picture already! No TV, No Internet, Air Conditioning was almost unheard of and minimum wage was like forty cents an hour for the entire decade.
I was to Canal street or what ever “radio row” or what it was called back in the late seventies and all I remember was a lot of over priced stores selling junk like consumer radios that were returns.
<snip>

You missed it.
Ur too young.
Which is good for you, since you still get to live a bit... probably.

Canal Street and surrounding area had a few of the remaining surplus places, by the
mid 70's the supplies had run out...in the late 60's it was still really good for buying electronics "stuff".

                 _-_-bear

[WBear2GCR]

<snip>

Some maps of the before and after.

Source for that date vs. aerial map??

                     _-_-bear

[W2PFY]

Well it's just my opinion that some of the best radio row days were just after WW2 with all the military surplus that probably was sold there. I don't know if in fact that WW2 stuff was sold there but it was sold everywhere else? I remember a bunch of large stores selling surplus stuff on RT 22 in NJ near Kenelworth probably as a result of radio row being run out of the area they occupied. That was in the early seventies.

Before WW2 it was probably a large outlet for  home radios and later TV sets.

Maybe I should stop guessing at what was there and read some history on the subject?

[Sam KS2AM]

<snip>

Some maps of the before and after.

Source for that date vs. aerial map??

                     _-_-bear

That's a link to a pic on some website.  Dont know where they got it from but I suspect it was here.  https://maps.nyc.gov/then&now/