By Stephen Harmon
I love Throwback Thursday because it gives me the opportunity to search my photo files for the images I took on the UWS in those vanished days of the 1970s and 80s. Everything was always changing and I felt in a rush to preserve it on film.
Stephen Harmon is a longtime Upper West Sider, a retired lawyer, and a world-class photographer whose work is displayed in many of the city’s museums, including The Museum of the City of New York, The Brooklyn Museum, The New-York Historical Society, and The New York Public Library.
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This would be a great regular series:-)
2 things: 1st, I used to grab some Chinese takeout lunch special and head to the Thalia for a double feature (if I remember correctly, it was only $1 or $2!). Great way to spend the afternoon; and 2) My dad was a cab driver back in the 70’s/80’s and that yellow taxi was the exact model of cab he had. Love it!
I loved the Thalia! My first week in NYC I saw the sci-fi double feature A Boy and His Dog (Jason Robards) and Plan 9 From Outer Space. I brought in a sandwich and the dog that roamed the theater grabbed it right out of my hand, lol.
You used to eat chinese food inside theater? I suspect there must be a couple of funny stories about that. 🙂
I did, there was hardly any other patrons ever in there (prob why it closed lol). so it’s not like anyone could smell it or anything. But yeah, Chinese takeout is easy to manage with those old style “white flip top” containers with the metal handles (that you rarely see nowadays)
I took a slice of pizza in once, to Cinema Village, and got all kinds of nasty glares from another guy. I didn’t think it was weird. I went to the Thalia, but I don’t remember what I saw.
Really enjoy seeing these pictures of UWS. Reminds us of days gone by and what it looks like now. Can you list under the picture where this particular was? Some look remarkably familiar. Keep them coming.
If I may be greedy here, I would also love to know the approximate date when each photo was taken (I know they span two decades, collectively), as well as the location. In any event, I am profoundly grateful to Mr. Harmon for sharing these absolutely wonderful photos!
1) Ironic that these seemingly off-handed pictures are priceless.
2) To the author: please post more of them
3) To everyone else: please post any that you have too
Mr. Harmon, I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE your photos. I get so happy any time I see that they’re featured here.
All the theaters unfortunately gone. We desperately need a movie theater on the upper UWS.
When Lincoln Plaza Cinema closed I thought I’d die! But I found solace in the Elinor Bunin Theater which offers similar fine cinema experiences. Check it out!
The Thalia is still here.
Everyday shots that are now valuable artifacts! Thank you! Speaking of old UWS movie theaters: Any chance you have a photo of the Nemo (110th and Bway) or of the Olympia (107th and Bway)?
I lived on the UWS from 82-97, and then moved back in 2020….
The 72nd street subway station had only one entrance south of 72nd. There’s another one on the north side too now.
Papaya King was cleaner and much more appealing then. That great pic refreshed my memory.
Would love to hear more commentary on the others.
Yes! This should be a regular series! Take us back to the “good ole days”! How about the Cherry Diner on Columbus Ave any photos? So many of us used to frequent that wonderful little spot!
Thank you for sharing these. I recall many of these spots. Post more!! So much fun to look at what was. And often sad as well.
Oh, how I miss William’s BBQ!!!!
Great chicken, and the arcane payment system. Sorely missed.
I still haven’t recovered from my first time in there, not knowing the system for ordering, paying, picking up
These photos are great in every way. I wish that the streets had been listed below the photos. Would enjoy seeing more.
These are the best! Thank you for having the foresight to take and preserve these photos and , most of all, thank you for sharing them with us.
When I saw the title of your piece, I was hoping to see the front of the 72nd Street subway stop, and you came through. Thank you.
I love how many things in these pics are still there! Grays Papaya, the shoe repair place and the barber shops on Amsterdam between 74th and 73rd! That’s all I recognize. I only got here in 1998. 🙂
There is an episode in the 70’s sitcom Rhoda where she’s getting married. In one scene, they show her in the middle of the street in front of Grays Papaya trying to hail a cab.
Wonderful photos. Love looking back and also seeing what’s still standing. Captions with locations and, in some cases, place names would be amazing.
Wonderful photos. I moved to the UWS in 1978, and I’m still here. I loved remembering all these places.
I’m so jealous. Lived on 75th between Broadway and West End from 79-84.
I absolutely love seeing these photos! Would be a great regular feature! Thank you!
I well remember when the 79th Street Restaurant (cheeseburger deluxe, invariably) was our Friday night treat.
Love this series- I miss P & G Bar very much
Does anyone remember the name of the movie theater in 70s I think that played double features. And in the summer they would run all the great mgm musicals. They served only popcorn. And one coukd get cards punched for freebie after that? Lines down the street and lots of discounts for seniors.
The Embassy on 72nd and The Beacon on 74th…The Beacon had a matron section in the 60s!
From a faraway city I moved to the Bronx (Jerome Avenue) in 1973 and three years after that, to my present apartment on Columbus Avenue near 72nd Street.
Many of your photos align with my first memories of my neighborhood. One, however, is yet to come: Merit Farms rotisserie chickens.
I can remember the ‘walking by’ smell vividly but I can’t remember where it was—the one near my apartment, that is. Amsterdam Avenue maybe?
I’ll bet you also have one of Al Buon Gusto (next to Eclair) on 72nd Street. Unforgettably good minestrone soup!
Eclair is my unforgettable memory.
I was back in the neighborhood yesterday and I picked up some food at Broad Nosh Bagels which replaced Williams Bar-B-Q on 86th and Broadway. It’s a great little spot with terrific service and food. But the whole time I was in there I kept thinking about the giant barbecue rotisseries that used to turn day and night for decades in that space. I wanted to tell all the other customers about the heat that used to come radiating off those big skewers. Explain the fiery glow through the front window. Tell them how you could slip inside on a freezing cold day and blend in with the customers for a minute if you just needed to warm up in a hurry. About the guys in the white uniforms, always smudged by barbecue sauce, who sweated it out behind the counter with good spirits and that sort of old New York irrepressibility. Working inches from that blast furnace-level heat for hours on end, you got the sense that it was as much industrial work as culinary.
I wanted to shout out “Don’t you know how much of this neighborhood’s history is wrapped up in this one small storefront?!” Then I realized that in 40 years one of the customers around me might be standing right where I was, waiting in a totally different business by then… maybe it will be a dress shop, or a glasses store, or some business that hasn’t even been invented yet, and that person will want to shout out the very same thing about their own youth and history and this food store. Time marches on and it waits for none of us.
The nice woman behind the counter called out my order number. I reached for my bag with a grateful smile, and exited to visit my aging parents and bring them one more lunch for us to share.
What a beautifully written and evocative piece. Thank you for that. It brought me to tears.
Great story yes time marches on but we will always have our memories.
These are beautiful! Would love to see more!
Love these photos…in future would love to see the addresses of these places.
Love these photos! Thank you.! Would you be able to put the locations under the photos?
I miss the New Yorker movie theater, Rocky Horror Show!
Thank you… Wonderful photos! The second photo featuring Oscar’s — I’m trying to remember the location. I think it’s 72nd St.?
Wasn’t the Thalia on 95th St.?
Yes, adjacent to Symphony Space. It is now the Leonard Nimoy Thalia (he financed the restoration/renovation of the theater.
Yes, between Broadway and West End.
These photos are wonderful. The photographer should consider doing a “lost New York” coffee table book.
It would help to have addresses of some kind to identify the block.
It would add to the enjoyment to know the locations of these photos.
Ernie’s! They had a great puttanesca sauce … with golden raisins in it! Thanks for the memories….
Loved Ernie’s. I’ve been on the UWS since the 1980s, and Ernie’s was one of the first restaurants that I had as a favorite in those early days. I was a young person, new to NYC, and, oh, that big room! Walking in and taking in that vista that seemed so glamorous.
Thank you for that photo and all your photos. Someone has to have eyes today for the sights that, later on, we’ll wish we could see again. That someone is you.
Just found this NYT article on the closing of Williams BBQ, see below. When I was working at Pace University’s Pleasantville Campus, there was a Williams BBQ and I found out that when it closed on 86th Street, it was moved to Mr. Pesso’s hometown, Pleasantville, in Westchester County, where it will be reincarnated as the spiffier-sounding Williams Gourmet Chicken.
https://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/23/nyregion/thecity/life-loss-and-the-chicken-man.html
OMG. Williams BBQ!! I use to get a free drumstick as a kid!
And the video store. Is that the one that was on, like, 90th and Broadway, and also another one on 88th and Broadway and both went out of business after Blockbuster opened on 87th and Amsterdam and 93rd and Broadway?
No, the Amsterdam Video Store was between 73rd and 74th. It was an “adult” video store.
Thank you!! I thought that’s where it was 🙂
What diner is that, by the telephone booth?
I moved to West 78 st. in 1974. I remember all these places except the Corner Store. The picture with Oscar’s Deli is where the big Alexandria apartment house is now. The Embassy Theater was in the same building around the corner on Broadway. Coming up Amsterdam or Broadway in a taxi at night and passing the P&G sign always signaled I was in my neighborhood.
Any pictures of Upper Broadway, above 96th St., around Columbia/Barnard? I remember Chock Full ‘o Nuts on 116th and Broadway; The West End, the Gold Rail, Duke’s, Takeome Foods (the store and the grill), and so many others that are gone now. Mondels Chocolates IS still there!
Love this!
Mr. Harmon, thank you for sharing.
With all the comments about the Thalia, no one has mentioned “the hump” in the floor, which positioned an entire row looking up at the ceiling.
Williams Chicken – remembered fondly! Do you by chance have any photos of the penny candy store/homemade ice cream store that was on Broadway, next to Murray’s Sturgeon shop in the late 1970’s? It proceeded Party Cake.
Papaya king was like a health food store 😉 . Even the walk / don’t walk signs bring nostalgia. And the news vendors with the piles of paper, getting wet with snow….it is probably true we put up with less misery now, most of us: buses are better, you can tell when they will come, heating and cooling on transit is better. Less garbage and poop smell in summer. But it’s good to see the places, and the flavor of some of the human interactions is caught in some of the photos. Thank you again.
Mr. Harmon: thank you so much for allowing West Side Rag to publish your photos. Each one is a joy to view . Glad to hear that you also have had exhibits at my favorite museums, and I will look for you there.
Many newstands no longer sell newspapers or any reading matter. But I think we will always call them newsstands. Kids will wonder about the name.
Love these! The P&G!! The Thalia! wonderful memories.
Wonderful photos. Thanks for sharing them, Mr. Harmon.
What about the Regency revival house? We used to take guacamole and chips in for the double bills!
Check out the man in the phone booth and on the phone!
Mmmm how I miss Williams BBQ with the weird pay the woman in the toll booth set up. Last time i went Harry Belafonte was shopping as well
Lived on the UWS briefly in the 90s. I recalled the delicious cheese burgers at Nikos diner. I believe it was located on Broadway near the 2/3 line.
Not to mention some great great movies filmed in the area during the 70/80s as I’m sure some people commenting probably witnessed ( Panic at Needle park, 3 days of the Condor, Romancing the Stone and many many more).
Thank you UWS for my short and pleasant stay.