By Stephen Harmon
Over the past several weeks, West Side Rag has published some of my photographs of the neighborhood in those vanished days of the 1970s and 1980s in its Throwback Thursday column. Readers posted so many positive statements and kind words about the photos in the Comments section that I will say to all of you, Thank You!
When I was photographing the streets, the people, and the businesses in those bygone days, I was trying to capture on film and preserve forever, I hoped, the look, the feel, the very essence of the time and place. Nostalgia was not foremost on my mind; I was photographing the current day. Today, it seems the results are triggering happy memories and people are enjoying them, and I am very glad.
Here is another small group of businesses — outside and inside — some of which have vanished, others of which have endured. All are preserved on film in my photo files, and in the photo collection of The New-York Historical Society.
Can you identify all the spots?
Stephen Harmon is an 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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I am flailing with delight! Anytime I see Mr. Harmon’s name on this site, I get all giddy, because I know it’s going to be something fantastic.
I love the contrast in my reactions from “wow has changed so much” (Symphony Space) to “looks exactly the same” (Murray’s).
I really love these photos Steve Harmon! Keep them coming. We were here for all of these and for me, these were better days on the westside and in the city. There were shops for anything and everything. And there was a camaraderie amongst folks that I don’t experience in the same way. Maybe we can get it back!!!!!!!!!!!
Me too!! I agree completely!
The last photo looks like the Metro near 100 and Broadway which is sadly still boarded up.
No, they’ll be announcing a new exciting thing moving in there… IN 2 WEEKS!!!
4th down: Amsterdam Restaurant?
Thanks for this vivid evocation of a time in our wonderful neighborhood in its continuinuing evolution
Those lunch counter/coffe shop photos are taking me back in time.
Any chance you could add a list of locations at the bottom of these photo essays? Some i recognize, but quite a few I don’t, and it would be nice to know what or where they were.
Having been born on the UWS these pics are so thoroughly enjoyable.
I think the barbershop in the picture was on W. 103rd Street and Broadway. I recognize it by the barber pole. When the shop closed, the barber covered up the top section with that dark blue shell you see. This was to prevent vandals from breaking it
I remember that place and the pole! I think they also had a ride next door for kids. Remember when there were rides outside of shops?
Katz was his name. He’d proudly showed me his New Yorker clippings he treasured in the right window display. In his youth, Katz swam in Hudson River during his lunch time.
I miss the on premises bake shops. But the obscene rents in the area won’t allow that to ever return.
Yes, the smell when you walked into one let you know you just had to have whatever they were selling. Sad to see those go.
Broadway Barber Shop was on the West Side of Broadway between 103 & 104
Kay Demetreou (Mr. Kay) Proprietor. Last best place to get a shave.
IIRC, the interior was donated to the Museum of the City of New York. Hope that’s right! Went once shortly before it closed; loved the step back in time, and the proprietor was lovely.
He retired from that shop at age 77.. While in his chair he told me he cut Eisenhower’s hair. And it’s recorded that he also barbered Harry Truman, composers Aaron Gopland and George Gershwin, and Humphrey Bogart.
Love, love, love these! I have lived on the UWS since 1971, seen so many changes, some for the better, but, oh, the nostalgia I feel for the old days. I miss the grit and character of the neighborhood back then. Greasy spoons, neon, old theatres. There used to be 7 or 8 choices of movie theatres be tween 59th and 106th.
You never cease to amaze. Thank you, thank you, thank you, for the memories!
Is this a contest?
I see with my little eye, the old location of Sal and Carmine’s Pizza!
Thank you for the memories….
Oh, the Broadway Barbershop and Mr. Kay! He was my barber from the time I moved here in 1989 until he retired not too many years later. Quite the character. Loved to name drop about the famous customers he had over the years and show the numerous press clippings about his shop from decades past, which were stacked around the store. And he told plenty of stories about the neighborhood back in the day,
When I went on weekend afternoons, he was always playing opera on the radio — The Met on WQXR IIRC — and he himself sang in a small Gilbert & Sullivan company I think in The Bronx. Or at least that’s what he told me.
He used to block the entrance to his shop with two chairs. You walked up to the chairs, and he stop cutting the hair of whomever was in his chair at the moment, and he walked over to you. He would look you over, and if he liked the look of you, he would tell you the waiting time. If you complained about the waiting time or weren’t willing to wait in the shop, he would tell you he was not the barber for you today, and send you on your way.
I loved sitting and waiting in his shop — usually around an hour — and listening to the music and conversations. I believe he donated a lot of the shop fixtures to The Museum of the City of New York when he closed the place.
Oh, yeah, great haircut, too.
These are just wonderful photos. Mr. Harmon – do you have any photos of Parnassus book shop that was on 89th street between Broadway and Amsterdam from 1967 to 1977? My father owned the shop and we have no photos of the outside of the shop.
Stephen, thank you for turning your gift for photography into a gift for us. I look forward to seeing your photos each Thursday, those I recognize and the ones I don’t are each special.
Please identify the interiors! 🙂. Thank you! By Ny chance do you have any pictures of The Norwood, my go-to diner (it wasn’t even a diner, it was a counter) in the early 70s? It was on the east side of Broadway between 98th-100th. Does anyone remember The Norwood?
I remember a small place within those blocks where I would get milk shakes with my mother, but I don’t know if it also served food. I think it was between 98 and 99th but I can’t be sure, I was quite young. I loved those milk shakes!
Symphony Space was a movie theater during all my early years. I remember seeing “The Russians are Coming, The Russians Are Coming” there with my Grandmother. She was born in Vilna (now Vilnius) but deported to Siberia from 1940-45, so she spoke Russian and many other languages. Every time Theador Bikel was on screen, she would poke me and whisper loudly”That’s Bikel! That’s Bikel!” I was happy then…
I was taken to Red Badge of Courage there, but I was much too young for the carnage so we had to leave.
P.S. Sorry, I misspelled Bikel’s first name, it was Theadore
Actually, Theodore
Thanks. What wonderful pictures. I love them all. Fun fact, the pizza place on the block of symphony space was Sal’s, which was forced to move a little bit uptown and is still there as Sal and Carmines’s Sadly both men have passed, but their heirs run the business.
I miss seeing the sky!
And just past the Thalia heading down 95th Street was hole-in-the-wall Pomander Books (1975–~1986).
Thanks – these are great! Can you give us the answers next Thursday, and so on, and so on?
Fanelli’s in Soho; maybe Shopsin’s sandwich shop in the Village??; Murray’s UWS; Symphony Space
on UWS; Metro Movie Theater (RIP) UWS.
Oops! I somehow missed that these are all UWS locations!! Scratch the Fanelli’s and Shopsin’s! Lol. By the way, I love your photos!
How about Marvin Gardens! The Balcony?Blue Rose, Cannon’s, Teacher’s and Teacher’s Too? Ottomanelli!! Moon Palace anyone? The old Shakespeare and Co, Stingray on Amsterdam, the original iridium?
Is there a collection book of these I don’t know of, if so do tell!
Sunday brunch at Marvin Gardens!
The first pic invoked the biggest reaction from me. Papaya looking down 72nd St. That’s what I miss. Every shop had its own creative signage. Put them together one after another and it provides such a vibrant eyeful – and great picture! Storefronts now are so bland and homogenized. I love the gritty vibrant look of 70s NYC. Thanks for transporting me back for a few minutes.
The bagel shop with the dance studio above, was that on 80th Street on Broadway diagonally across from Zabars?
H&H Bagels at 2239 Broadway (1972–June 2011). Not diagonally but directly south of, across 80th Street.
1. 72nd and Amsterdam Ave
2.68th and Columbus
3.
4. Cherry’s
5. 95th & Broadway
6. Grossingers Bakery 89 and Columbus
7.
8. Broadway 90th Street
9. 104th and Broadway, I used to get my hair cut there.
10. The New Yorker theatre.
I love Throwback Thursday. These are great photos. The city existed on a more human scale back then and was utterly itself.
Everything looks so old and run down…. including the people.
The last picture is the Metro Theater, not the New Yorker. One other thing is that someone mentioned that everything looks old or rundown. This is what interested Mr. Harmon. In his many displays here at the West Side Rag, there are no pictures of kids going or coming from school, no baby carriages, no one walking their dogs. I would assume there was as much of that back then as there is now.
If you look at the bagel store picture, on the left, where the window ends, it says H&H bagels. This is the SW corner of 80th and Broadway. I remember H&H with a newer storefront. Above it is a ballet school with a big window. The big window is still there but it is now the New York Sports Club.
Mr. Kay’s barbershop. So many memories.
Mr. Kay’s barber shop…I miss moon palace restaurant on 112th St, Birdland jazz club on 105th Street, chock full o’nuts coffee shop on 116th Street, West end bar on 113th St., we need a good jewish deli like Katz on uws..