Wednesday, April 24, 2019

The Old Days

Start your day taking the ferry to lower Manhattan and then walk uptown with the crowds.  Wander over the Brooklyn Bridge later in the day and enjoy a serene ride on the Rosedale back home.

It's 1911 and the footage was taken by Svenska Biografteatern, a Swedish film discovery.  Restored, synched to natural speed and with ambient sound added it makes for a relaxing 11 minute tour.

Along with the ferry and the Brooklyn Bridge, you'll see the Flatiron Building, which still stands, and scenes of Chinatown, and along 5th avenue.  You can watch the recently popular automobiles navigating the streets between streetcars and horse drawn wagons and carriages.  And the film is so clear you can see the plentiful piles of horse manure!

In a scene midway through there is a touring car, with a white family and a black driver (the steering wheel is on the right!).  The vehicle is a E-M-F Touring Car, registered to Mrs F Lochwicz, 548 Eighth Street, Brooklyn (the clearly visible license plate allowed someone to do the research).

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