What Manhattan Looked Like in the 1970s Through My Eyes, Part 1

All photos copyright Betsy van Die and available in high resolution from original negatives. Permission needed to reproduce.

You might wonder why a Chicago native who has lived in the Windy City nearly all her life is so fond of the Big Apple and has an Instagram page dedicated to NYC in the 1970s. The answer can be traced back to my youth and coming of age when I was an art student at RISD. I took the Amtrak train from Providence to Penn Station many times during my four years at RISD, staying with my older sister in one of her many NYC apartments either in the Village or SoHo.

I think the other reason I am enamored of NYC is that my dad was born in Brownsville, Brooklyn and while you can take the boy out of Brooklyn… Indeed, he adored NYC and made yearly trips there for many decades that combined work with pleasure. From the time I was a toddler until he was too old to travel, he would attend winter meetings of either the American Psychiatric Association or American Psychoanalytic Association in the Big Apple. My mom would hang out with the other wives during the day and my parents would go to art galleries, museums, and plays during his leisure time.

He shared so many personal stories about NYC with me, both about his family and growing up in Brownsville, as well as about Manhattan, Coney Island, and the Catskills. And of course, he was a talented amateur photographer who taught me how to develop and print photos in our basement darkroom when I was just 12.

It’s hard to forget my first NYC visit because my sister and I got our signals crossed and I waited in the wrong area of Penn Station. A fellow RISD student named Anthony made the same mistake and both of us were close to tears. I finally went down an escalator and there she was, waiting and worrying about her kid sister. Of course, I quickly learned the ropes on subsequent visits and didn’t need my sister to accompany me from Penn Station to her downtown abodes ever again.

I don’t have a photo of her apartment on Sullivan Street when I visited in September 1976, but here is a more recent photo from June 2022. The building has a gate and intercom now, which is a good thing since her ground floor apartment was nearly robbed back in the day.

 

December 1976

Schoolchildren Playing at Recess

By December 1976, my sister had moved to a first floor apartment at Thompson and Houston. During winter break from RISD my freshman year, I saw St. Anthony Catholic schoolchildren playing outside during recess and decided to start shooting with my Nikon. Lost in childhood play, none of these youngsters seemed aware that a camera lens was capturing their joyous antics. I was inspired and influenced by wonderful photos of children playing on NYC streets by Helen Levitt, Ruth Orkin, and her husband Morris Engel.

Several people on Instagram were absolutely certain I captured a photo of Etan Patz in the first photo. That’s completely ridiculous considering he would have been 4-years-old when I shot this photo and not in school yet, much less a Catholic School. Interestingly, a few years after I posted this on Instagram, the little boy (facing front) in the photo identified himself!

 

Little Italy Moms

This was taken on my second trip to the Big Apple during my freshman year at RISD. It is one of many NYC negatives I scanned that I never printed back in the day in my basement darkroom. This was when most neighborhoods in NYC had a lot of charm, European flavor, and a small-town sense of community.

 

Couple Walking by Dave’s Corner Luncheonette, Broadway at Canal Street

 I photographed this wonderful diner many times, but never shot the entire façade, nor went inside. The few times I did buy something, I ordered an egg cream from the takeout window.

 

 

Italian Home Cooking, Father Demo Square

Bounded by Sixth Avenue, Bleecker Street, and Carmine Street, this diminutive triangular park and piazza is named in honor of Father Antonio Demo, who served the neighboring Our Lady of Pompeii Church from 1898 to 1936, most of the time as pastor. The park was created in 1923 by leftover open space from the demolition of multiple buildings for the extension of Sixth Avenue.

Known as Bleecker Luncheonette when I took this picture, the restaurant on the Southeast corner of Bleecker and Carmine featured a lunch counter, four tables, and food cooked by an elderly Italian lady and served by a waiter named Rene.

 

 

Smoking Winston Man Billboard, Times Square

From 1941 until 1966, a Camel sign designed by advertising executive and lighting designer Douglas Leigh puffed four‐foot smoke rings from a billboard along the east side of Broadway from 43rd to 44th Street. In 1972, Leigh cooked up the idea for a new Winston cigarettes sign at the southeast corner of Broadway and 45th Street. This flanked his nearly block-long Gordon’s Gin sign.

The Winston sign measured 31 by 54 feet and the smiling man’s head was 28-feet tall! As with the Camel signs, the steam was produced in a copper box just behind the head of the man to simulate smoke billowing from a lit cigarette, with as many as 1,000 smoke rings per hour! By September 1977, the sign had been removed because it was too expensive to operate. The Bond store in the photo opened in 1940 and closed in 1977.

 

 

 

Fascination Game Arcade and Shops, Broadway

I never went inside – I was simply fascinated by the sign. Apparently, Fascination was one of the best and roughest arcades in Times Square and open 24-7. Rats scurried around and truant officers would raid the place on a regular basis and haul away kids that were playing hooky. You can see a brief glimpse of Fascination in the movie Taxi Driver. I photographed this block again in December 1977.

 

 

Coffee Speed Corner, 35 Grand Street

At the time, my sister lived on Thompson, but coincidentally, moved to crappy garden apartment on Grand Street with her husband in 1979, not far from this shot. I like the crudely drawn cartoons.

 

 

April 1977

Vesuvio Bakery, 160 Prince Street

Opened in 1920 by Nunzio and Jennie Dapolito, Vesuvio quickly became a favorite in the SoHo community. Their son Anthony ran the bakery for many years and passed away in 2003.

Today, Vesuvio Bakery, Vesuvio Park, and the Anthony Dapolito Recreation Center pay homage to Anthony’s great contribution and love for NYC. The revamped and reimagined bakery pays homage to Vesuvio’s 105-year history, serving fresh baked Italian pastries, bread loaves, cookies, soft serve gelato, and more.

 

 

The Corner Delicatessen Coffee Shop, Soho

I can’t recall what street this was on – maybe Lafayette. This is one of the NYC photographs I printed back in the day and exhibited in Rotterdam in 1981 when I lived there.

 

 

Orchard Street Shoppers on Busy Sunday

Eight blocks in length, Orchard Street runs from Division Street at the southern end to East Houston Street at the northern end. Named for a mid-1700s orchard that was part of the 300-acre farm owned by James DeLancey, Orchard Street was once a bustling street packed with pushcarts, stalls, and discount brick and mortar shops with a wide array of clothing hanging outside, as well as other bargain goods.

 

 

Urban Decay, Lower East Side

In the 1970s, I nearly tripped over homeless people lying on sidewalks on route to Orchard Street and Essex Market. Men wandered in and out of dingy bars, drank on the streets, and panhandled. CBGB was literally an oasis of punk cool amid desolation. The Bowery was gritty, dirty, and somewhat dangerous, yet nobody ever bothered me. Today, the Bowery is home to hip hotels, Whole Foods, $17 million penthouses, the New Museum, Supreme, and a dwindling number of restaurant supply stores.

 

 

Peep Show and Dancewear, 1605-1607 Broadway

I like the contrasts in this photo. Established in 1925 by James Selva in NYC, Selva & Son grew into a major dancewear company used by the likes of Ziegfeld Follies girls. Selva filed his first patent in 1926 for a ballet slipper made of canvas, glue, and satin. The company later became Selva Dancewear and rivaled Capezio for many years. The Trans-Lux West theatre marquee is partially seen on the right side of the photo.