New York City in 3D: A Look Back in Time: With Built-in Stereoscope Viewer - Your Glasses to the Past! [Hardcover]

Greg Dinkins (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2, 2009

Old New York lives and breathes once again in these rare original three-dimensional photographs, showing the city we love at its nostalgic best. Here are the first skyscrapers, the old street markets, the wharves, street cars and elevated trains, and our New York ancestors at work and play.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Greg Dinkins (New York City) is president of the New York Stereoscopic Society.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 96 pages
• Publisher: Voyageur Press; First edition (October 2, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0760337225
• ISBN-13: 978-0760337226
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 7.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #242,622 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great entertainment the second time around, October 26, 2009

By 

N. Keller (New York) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: New York City in 3D: A Look Back in Time: With Built-in Stereoscope Viewer - Your Glasses to the Past! (Hardcover)

This book clearly demonstrates why stereoview cards were once a great entertainment medium. The book is very reasonably priced, and is filled with a good set of well-reproduced black-and-white views of New York City from about the 1860s until about the 1920s. All images appear to have been carefully cleaned up and restored providing a wonderful look back in time.

As a bonus, each pair of images is accompanied by a bit of history. Although 3-D viewing is not necessary to view the images, the most fun comes when you use the lenses built into the cover flap to view them in what is sometimes astonishing three dimensions. To be honest, it can take a bit of practice to "train" your eyes to see the images in 3-D, but it is worth doing. But the only downside for me is that due to mechanical limitations of the printing process, the images appear slightly grainy. It's a minor fault, but it does not detract from fully enjoying the book.

And it's certainly a great alternative to searching for and buying the original cards and a decent stereo viewer!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars See NYC as it was...and in some cases still is, December 17, 2009

By 

John J. Zelenka (New York City) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: New York City in 3D: A Look Back in Time: With Built-in Stereoscope Viewer - Your Glasses to the Past! (Hardcover)

Great quality with views you could spend hundreds of hours looking at and hundreds of dollars acquiring...all here for a bargain. The book has heft and an antique quality to it. It was the hit of this Thanksgivings get together. Young and old where captivated by it. The superb editing by Greg Dinkins adds information and insight to each of the vintage views. You won't be disappointed.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Pictures, Not So Good for 3D Viewing, June 9, 2011

By 

K. Groh (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: New York City in 3D: A Look Back in Time: With Built-in Stereoscope Viewer - Your Glasses to the Past! (Hardcover)

We have a number of 3D books that have the stereoscopes built in - Bugs in 3-D, Amphibians & Reptiles in 3-D, Beneath the Sea in 3-D. They work beautifully because the photos have been taken with such a high quality camera.

New York City in 3D has a bunch of great old black and white (somewhat sepia) photos that are terrific to look at on their own but the 3D aspect is somewhat lost in the old quality of the photos. The photos are often washed out and the printing screen is very noticeable when looking through the glasses. Some of the pictures don't really reflect the 3D either.

Having said that, the book is nicely made and has a paragraph of description/history for each photo. The cover is padded and has gold foil lettering and the collection of photos is pretty interesting historically. It is reminiscent of what someone might have seen when using the old fashioned stereoscope viewers which adds some charm to the book.

Overall the book is nice but lacks in the 3D benefit due to the quality of photos.