Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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!

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.

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.

I really love this book. The viewer is built into the front cover, so you hold that up while you turn the pages. You have to relax your eyes and then all of a sudden they kick in and you are seeing wonderful 3D images of the past. I went through the whole book right away but I know it is one that I will be getting out every so often to see the pictures again. I also have the other 5 of these books and have enjoyed all of them. I highly recommend this book if you want to see wonderful 3D images.

Let me quote the response of a native NewYorker, who received this book as a gift:

"Thanks for the great New York City Stereo Look Back album. The postman delivered it yesterday, and as today is dreary and rainy, a good 'stay indoors day' this morning was ideal to view and carefully study details of each photo. I enjoyed the photos especially since after graduating from high school in January 1949, I took a job in the financial area of Manhattan (site of many of the photos), and was able to relate with the locations, and some of the buildings. Thanks again for your thought. But tell me, how in the world did you come across the album?"

Actually I found it next to other stereo view books by googleing stereo photos. Knowing some of the photo sites from occasional visits, it was fascinating to see the amazing vintage photo quality and the 3D effects with some dramatic views. The explanatory comments were a perfect crash course in American history and the early advanced bridge and building construction technology in those days. Being a stereo card collector myself I can appreciate the reproduction quality and the integrated flap-lens stereo viewer that comes with it. I think this integrated concept is a great idea and even the kids enjoy history this way a lot more compared to text books (especially with the current 3D media hype). However the printing resolution has potential for improvement and the heavy and bulky glass lenses of the flap-type viewer could be replaced by paper-flat and light-weight plastic Fresnel magnifier lenses that would even fit inside a paperback format version to reduce production cost.
5 stars worth anyhow as well as for: London in 3D: A Look Back in Time: With Built-in Stereoscope Viewer-Your Glasses to the Past! and Brian May's A Village Lost and Found that comes with a detachable folding 3D viewer and compares Victorian courtyside stereo card photos with contemporary colour stereo views of the re-identified original sites

(As a hint for AMAZON's "LOOK INSIDE" feature and eventually for other viewerless print versions: it is possible to view stereo photos in 3D also on screen without stereo viewers, if the right and left photos are exchanged for bare cross-eyed view - impressive examples can be found on the web.)

Book and viewer page - great concept! Cover pic. should have been included in the book. All pics. should have been dated. Some selections could have been better. Four pics. very little 3D:Woolworth Bldg. - St. Paul's Chapel - Barnum Museum after fire - Grand Central Depot. Five pics. no 3D at all: Immigrants Arriving at Ellis Island - Free Reading Room - Bathers at Coney Island - Liesurely Group in Central Park - Limited Express in Central Park. One pic. reversed 3D - Metropolitan Fair on 14th St. I still like the book and will consider purchasing others. Proofing and editing must be better.

Wow....for $14 you get to step back in time and transplant yourself into NYC from 1840 - 1920's.... The viewer is superb, the image quality considering the 150+ year old images the author had to use...and the low cost printing technique was much better than I expected... The book cover has a great padded feel.... Dinkins hit a home run with this one...

I have a few other Dinkins 3d books, but this one is the best.... the imagery lends itself very well to the 3d effect...the photographers in their day had excellent technique.... the cost per view is ridiculously low vs. any other type of stereo viewing technique. I highly recommend this NYC 3d book.

Fair cover of times gone by with great stereoscopic photos, that are easily used to bring the photo into 3D. Reasonable variety of topics though a little limited from available 3D footage I guess.

All of the books in this series are great. As a stereocard maker and enthusiast, I was excited about the release of these books.
Good points: Excellent price! Excellent construction with the fold out viewer in the cover and excellent graphics giving it an 'antique' feel. Some very rare views are presented that would cost a fortune to purchase. The descriptions originally printed on the card's verso are reproduced here on the preceding page to each image so that they can be viewed and read all at once... And, did I mention the excellent price?
Weak points: Some cards which already suffered from poor image quality are made 'grainy' by the halftone printing. A few of the images are not in 3D. A few images have the left and right images reversed. While the original cards may have been this way, the least they could have done was correct them or note the error in the descriptions.
Still, these few and minor weaknesses do not detract from the overall quality of the books. Nothing can really describe seeing historical moments and people in 3D.These books should be in classrooms. I look forward to the next 2 releases in the series.