Text and Photographs by Stephen Harmon
A few weeks ago, a comment about my Throwback Thursday photographs said that the Upper West Side of the 1970s and 80s looked old, rundown, and dirty, and that I, as the photographer, was only interested in people who were down and out.
The UWS of those vanished days — and the UWS today — certainly do look old, as most of the buildings were constructed from the late 1870s up to the Depression, which started in October 1929. Yes, there were alcoholics and other unfortunates who lived on the streets, a chronic problem here and in other large cities. For the most part, though, the UWS was a vibrant, diverse community, populated by people of all ages, colors, and ethnicities. This is an important part of the UWS I was trying to preserve forever 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, New York Historical, and The New York Public Library.
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Your photos are wonderful… capturing my earliest years living on the UWS and attending Columbia undergrad. Thank you!
My memories, too! Moved down to the 70s from Morningside Heights in the late 1970s.
Keep the photos coming, they are terrific! What a time in history!
Thank you.
This batch is more delightful than ever! Such pride in self and place!
Wonderful pictures!
Terrific!
I love these photos of the neighbors, and you are so correct about the vibrancy and creativity in the neighborhood then… The photos bring back that time beautifully…and where are the alley cats which used to scream? the bongo and domino players happily playing on the street? The horses and the grooms cleaning up after? The casita where the community garden on 89-90th is now…complete with roosters crowing? The best part of New York and the UWS is that you are free to be yourself, we are all here together.
How about the guy who used to pull a train of little wagons and tricycles ridden by cats?
Considering everything, it was actually safer and more vibrant than it is now., even with the dirt and the trash.
These are great!
A fabulous photographic archive of the ‘hood we all love! Thank you!
Outstanding, as always. If others feel that you glorify the ‘old, dirty’ New York, they don’t have to click the Throwback Thursday link. Personally, I believe NYC had more personality and character back in the 20th century than it does today, and I so happy that you share these moments in time with your adoring fans (of which I am one). Keep up the great work Stephen.
Love these photos! Do you have one of that marvelous older lady who used to put her many matching pets (little white poodles, I think?) with hair bows into her little red wagon and cart them around the Columbus Avenue & 72nd Street neighborhood?
I was born in NYC (in a upper east side hospital) many years ago. After that I lived in many places on the East and West Coasts. I returned to NYC in the late 1960s and decided to live on the UWS on the suggestion of a friend. I had never been to the UWS before. The area was certainly not the glamorous and expensive area that it is now. Rents were very cheap — $88 a month for a rather small furnished apt on W. 76 St.! Beer and food were also cheap compared to the current high prices for booze and food at most places on the UWS. No internet and no mobile phones then. So persons actually talked to each other a lot back then at bars! The retail shops were very basic in their looks and products . Many parts of Central Park looked like a desert. I rarely walked above W 79 for safety reasons. Things have changed a lot on the UWS mostly for the better since 1970s on the UWS thank goodness. I wish I had access to a lot of money back then and used it to buy real estate in NYC. If I had, I would be a very wealthy old man now.
These are incredible photos! Completely love them.
Love posts like this. More please!
Man, I have lived here for most of mylife, apart from college and a brief sojourn to Washington Heights. And seeing these pictures makes me miss people really hanging out on the stoops. And hearing Yiddish. On the benches on Riverside Park. l
wow, these are so totally amazing and spirit-lifting! Thank you, thank you, thank you for sharing these. It is such a strong reminder of how different (and to me, richer) life was before the internet stepped in and changed everything.
I’ve lived on the UWS since 1981, and in NYC since 1971, and I do miss the old days. What I am so struck by in your photos is how well-dressed so many of the people were, especially the older folks. Nowadays you see people on the street literally in pajama pants and slippers!
Great photos.
In the 1970s and 80s the upper west side was rundown. It was the time when very smart people bought “rundown” brownstones for less than $100K (verily yes). On my block in the 80s, there was a thriving cocaine trade.
Sadly there were also some great small businesses. Does anyone remember the “bway nut shop” on Broadway between 79 and 80. (West Siders, support small businesses this holiday season)
It most definitely was rundown back then. One of my favorite facts about the neighborhood is that, in one of Al Pacino’s first movies, Panic in Needle Park, the titular Needle Park was Verdi Square.
Yes! The Broadway Nut Shop at 2246 Broadway; I believe it lasted until c. 2015.
Diagonally across the intersection was, in addition of course to H&H Bagels, the Gryphon Books Annex at 246 West 80th Street, 2nd floor. The Annex was around roughly between 1984 & 1993. Anyone else remember it? (Ahoy, Jonathan Lethem.)
Great pics. They certainly bring back many fun memories. I lived on the UWS from ’82 to ’86 and while it was starting to gentrify, it was still a bit gritty and “real”. I loved the neighborhood then and always will.
I know these photos, as wonderful as they are, may not tell the whole story, but it does seem as if people were happier, took more pride in themselves-they dressed so much better-were more opened to chance encounters. What happened?
How about the little old lady who used to carry around a giant bottle of Johnson’s Baby Powder and sprinkled the seat in Central Park….before she sat down on the bench!
Really nice photos!
Wonderful photos. I love seeing people from these days and their families and wondering how things turned out for them.
NYC history is beautiful and horrible in equal measure. No need to whitewash it.
But yes, I’m blessed to live in a neighborhood that seeks to always improve.
❤️❤️❤️
Remember the fabulous woman’s clothing store on Broadway just off the corner of 72nd St, “Agatha Boutique”. I do. Agatha was my mom!
I have lived in the same apartment in the West 80s since 1965 (I was 7), and I utterly disagree with this assessment. The 1970s and 80s were EXACTLY what the right-wing (wrongly) thought of NYC in the 90s and 00s. There were prostitutes on almost every corner of Broadway every night, certainly between 74th and 92nd Streets, and beyond. The Belleclaire Hotel was their go-to place, but also along the side streets,. In the 70s, there were indeed used syringes in the parks, on the streets, etc. And in the 80s it was crack vials. There was gang warfare on Amsterdam and Columbus Avenues (particularly b/w the upper 80s and the 100s), and on side streets, and plenty of gun violence, and deaths.
Yes, the UWS has always been a “vibrant, diverse” community. But to gloss over the realities of the 70s and 80s is at best a whitewash and at worst hopelessly dishonest. They were NOT safe and happy times, certainly not for the children of the community.
All true. And yet … I stand ready to jump into my time machine (inoperative at the moment, alas) and head back.
Totally agree with you. . Nice photos of persons of all ages. But does not show the real upper rundown, unsafe, drug infested upper west side. in the 70s and 80s that I recall Needle park got its name for the drug trade I saw that in person. I have lived near it for many years. Unfortunately crime is increasing these days.
Wonderful Photos!
I look forward to these amazing pictures every week. Thank you, Stephen Harmon, for so beautifully capturing these nostalgic images, taking us back to simpler times.
The Upper West depicted in your article was a mixture of all people who live and played without FOBO. Great restaurants, boutiques, gift and specialty shops and music venues … happy hour and brunch! Something for everyone. Just taking a stroll was an adventure.
The UWS is still a dynamic place to live however the proliferation of chain stores has caused many of the mom and pop stores to close and the expansion of Columbia University has gentrification much of upper Nroadway with rich college students who don’t know much about the history of the Upper west side
Love these. What a cute bunny!
Anyone remember the small group of Pentecostal singers in the early 70s that used to sing on the SW corner of Broadway somewhere in the 90s?
New York City’s Upper West Side was ever so much more interesting in the 70s and 80s — wonderful odd shops, places to eat that didn’t cost a lot, all kinds of interesting and diverse folks and events — and now we have all these “luxury” buildings stuffed with investment bankers (and other veddy rich folks, plus empty luxury apts bough by the overseas rich as investments or bolt holes) that are turning us into the East Side, and no decent hosing for the homeless – they had places to stay back then that dd not cost much.
I really miss all the great little restaurants, especially Broadway Bay, Palsson’s, and Teacher’s/Teacher’s Too.
This collection of photos is remarkable and brings me back. I moved to the Upper West Side in 1972. It was a wonderful then and it’s wonderful now. It is a cross section of cultures races and ethnicities and that’s what makes it wonderful.
In my twenties in the late 70’s I lived near the Dakota in a rundown brownstone with electric service so primitive it couldn’t support AC. I paid $240/m, the roaches were free. Above the museum of natural history was still very rough. Does anyone remember the building on Columbus near there boarded up with old doors before Yves st Laurent ‘gentrified’ it? The finish line of the marathon and bodies wrapped in Foil blankets wandering around afterwards before the event became out of control?
It’s very sterile today compared to back then. The 70’s was a great time to be young on the uws.
It is the same and crime. Drug taking is the same
I lived in the area in the 1960’s and ran a curio store called “Bills Curios and oddities”. It was a glorious time and I felt we were living in a golden age of curio collecting. I specialized primarily in bear figurines and we had amassed arguably the largest collection of historically significant ursine collectibles in the western hemisphere. Tragically one evening we were looted by a mob of angry suburbanites who wrecked havoc on my curio cabinets and then fled back to their tasteless hovels in NJ. It was truly a dark day on the UWS but alas there was a new dawn and we rebuilt in Mayfair London. I still have fond memories of the old neighbor hood and believe that some day we will return to capitalize on the commercial viability of Bear collectibles.
The color added certainly brightens things up. But, as someone who grew up in the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s on the UWS, it was dirty, and neglected by landlords, teeming with real people and IT WAS THE BEST NEIGHBORHOOD IN THE WORLD! I wouldn’t trade those years before gentrification for anything