oldnewyork

[oldnewyork]

Beneath an artificial dogwood tree, Joan Crawford and her fourth and final husband, Pepsi-Cola CEO Alfred N. Steele, relax on the plastic-covered sofas of their 18-room New York City duplex penthouse in the 1950s. One of Crawford’s decorators, Carleton Varney, said, “There was more clear plastic on that furniture than was on the meat in an A&P supermarket.” The apartment was decorated by Crawford’s longtime friend William Haines, who had been a leading man during the silent era.

Source: Architectural Digest

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Dr. Martin Luther King and his wife Coretta are smiling and cheerful during their interview at Harlem Hospital on September 30, 1958, as King recovers from a near-fatal stabbing ten days earlier at a book signing in Harlem.

Photo: Al Pucci for the NY Daily News

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Leon Levinstein. Untitled (Man holding baby in arms in street), circa 1950.

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Exuberant Brooklyn Dodgers fans loaded on an old fruit truck, wildly celebrating the Dodgers winning the World Series, on a street downtown, 1955.

Photo by Martha Holmes

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Lou Bernstein.   Delancey Street Rooftop, 1950.  

[oldnewyork]

Manhattan pedestrians hustle home at the end of the day. Photographed 1954 by Vivian Maier.

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House of Patria (photographer). Seagram building under construction, 375 Park avenue, New York, N.Y., west view, 28 January 1957.

[oldnewyork]

Accompanied by a pair of men in tuxedos, a trio of fashion models pose in brocade, velvet, and lame ‘theater suits’ in the entryway to the Lunt-Fontanne Theater, 1958. Across the street you can see the old Helen Hayes Theater, which was torn down to build the Marriot Marquis Hotel. Another theater was renamed the Helen Hayes. This is one of Gordon Parks’s fashion photos.

Source

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Grand Street - Brooklyn NY, 1957

Henri Cartier-Bresson

[oldnewyork]

The Edge of Doom, August 1950.

Photo: George Alexanderson for the NY Times via Times Archives

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March 11, 1959: Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun opens on Broadway. It was the first play by an African-American woman to do so, and the first directed by an African-American (Lloyd Richards). Featuring Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee, Louis Gossett, Ivan Dixon, and Diana Sands, it ran for nearly two years. Hansberry was only 29 at the time.

Above, Hansberry at the opening night party at Sardi’s. Below, a scene from the play, with Claudia McNeil, Sidney Poitier, and Diana Sands.

Photo above: Gordon Parks via the Life Picture Collection/Getty Images Photo below: Friedman-Abeles via NYPL

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Vivian Maier, Self-Portrait, New York, NY, 1953

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Coney Island, 1951.

Photo: Lou Bernstein via Int'l Center of Photography

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The city at night, 1955.

Photo: Elliott Erwitt via Christie's

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Burt Glinn     Poet Bob Lubin Reading at the Gaslight Cafe, Greenwich Village, New York City     1959

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Horn & Hardart Automat at West 57th Street near Sixth Avenue, March, 1957. Horn & Hardart opened the first automat in Times Square on July 2, 1912. They took the concept from a successful German restaurant. By the mid-20th century, there were over 50 Horn & Hardart restaurants in New York, serving 350,000 customers a day.

Photo: Albert Mozell via Fine Art America

[oldnewyork]

Martin Elkort Puppy Love, Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York 1950