Customer Reviews

Central Park (Then and Now: New York)

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This is a wonderful book, and very much worthy of the series. I'd like to point out just one small error, though. The Rachael Robinson Elmer postcard reproduced on p. 71 does not show any part of Central Park; in fact the site it depicts is one and a half cross-town blocks away from the Park. The postcard shows the staircase at the southeast corner of _Morningside_ Park, just north of the northwest intersection of Manhattan Avenue with 110th Street. The Ninth Avenue Elevated ran along 110th Street at this point and thus was visible from this staircase. The staircase is still there and instantly recognizable from Elmer's painting. The only Central Park staircase that afforded a view of the Elevated (though it was an angled view, not straight on as in Elmer's postcard), the one at the northwest corner of Central Park just across from where the Elevated curved north from 110th Street into 8th Avenue, also still exists and is of a very different construction from the one Elmer painted. At least two postcards exist that show that view from Central Park, but Elmer's is not one of them.

Bob Hymes
Columbia University

If you are interested in old photographs of New York, the history of Central Park, or postcards and paper collectibles this book is for you! It is a pictorial essay of the history of Central Park from its inception to the present and can serve as a wonderfully rich guided tour!! There's something here for park lovers as well as those visiting from out-of-town! Enjoy the journey!!