Text and Photographs by Stephen Harmon
From the day I moved to the Upper West Side, I was captivated by the people I saw walking along the streets. I don’t know if it was their clothes, their expessions, their gestures, their postures, or all of it and more, but I was impelled to photograph them and try to capture and preserve a time and place I knew was unique and would one day vanish.
I immodestly love all of my UWS photos from the 1970s and 80s, but one of my favorites is the elderly man carefully counting his change after having just bought something in what was then the Royale Bakery on West 72nd Street. I call that photograph (the first one below) “The Pensioner.”
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, and The New York Public Library.
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I’d love to see Steve Harmon (a wonderful photographer) try photographing parallel shots on today’s UWS. I believe that people don’t change as much as we think. Only the current fashions and colors change. The same people are here, hidden in plain sight.
I can’t get enough of these! Please keep them coming.
Thank you!
Ditto for me!
These ‘ throwback’ photos are marvelous! Thank you so much for them. They make me smile during an otherwise bleak time.
Thank you!
Thank you for sharing your work, Mr. Harmon. You are gifted.
My pleasure!
So so so great! Shades of Diane Arbus who is one of my favorite artists. But better in some ways because they also evoke a specific, very real, time and place. And I remember that time and place but because I was young, -under 18 for sure- , the memories these photos evoke are sense memories, emotional rather than verbal. Thank you again Mr Harmon.
Kind words, thanks. Arbus was a big influence.
Would be nice to see this published in a book. I’d buy it.
I’d love to buy a print, I love the Upper West Side
This place is a completely different city than what’s depicted in these fantastic photos (Steve – great work taking them , preserving them and presenting them today ) but, this city is like the Ship of Theseus – when is it no longer the same city that it was 40 years ago ?
Thanks for these, Stephen. You have such a talent for capturing not only faces, but what’s going on behind the faces. The people you portray are not “characters;” they are individuals with real humanity.
Thanks so much!
Lamston’s! If Woolworth’s didn’t have it, we tried Lamston”s (and vice versa).
I never get tired of looking at Stephen’s photos. Keep ’em coming !
Thank you, thank you.
Lamstons!
I was always a fan…🙃
Thanks!
Tell me that mustache isn’t a clip on…
Waxed!!
Wonderful photos – thank you!
Thank you!
I love these. Keep ‘em coming. And maybe ask others to send some in as well.
Thanks!!
Your pics are fascinating, a whole world emerges!
I appreciate that!
I look forward to these every Thursday!
So kind!
Fabulous photos! So many hats and can that mustache be real? It’s great to have a photo of the OTB and even greater that it’s long gone. How anyone in government ever thought it was a good idea to have a betting parlor in a residential neighborhood is beyond belief. Thank you for recording the UWS for us.
Thank you very much!
Love these! Thank you!
and thank you!
These are spectacular in beautifully catching it as it was! It’s the city I moved to so long ago – I miss it
Kind words. Thanks!
These pictures feel like a gift. I scroll down very slowly to take in the wonderful details & feel of each marvelous image. I love every stroll through these memories in time. Thank you WSR & Stephen Harmon for sharing.
Thank you!!
Thank you!
Wow! OTB! That’s a blast from the past! I remember my dad taking me there as a kid. Maybe 10 or 11 years old, He used to sneak me cigarettes so I wouldn’t tell my mom that he stopped there. We’d often stop at the neighborhood bar if he did well on the ponies. Such fond memories of OTB and my dad. We were very close until he took his life in Atlantic City.
I’m now at the age of most of the people in this series of wonderful photos ; while I moved from W 79 to Southern California a year ago, I lived there from 1972 to 2023. My heart still aches for what was …huge thanks to Mr. Harmon!
Thank you, Margaret!
As I scroll down the page I realize over and over how almost all of the people in these photos have so much depth and character, they could really be the lead actors of any play or movie today.
Reply to Carla below:
I’m so very sorry. Gambling is kind of a silent addiction— very strong and very deadly. About 100,000 people a year in this country die from gambling-related suicide.
Thank you for sharing. I’m sure you miss him every day. Maybe your comment will reach someone who is struggling and will get needed help.
Thank you for the kind words. My dad had his demons, but worked hard and provided for us.
Unfortunately, the financial burden and ultimately the divorce was too much for him. There is help out there for those caught up in that life. You can get your life back in order even though it may seem impossible.
I’m thankful I did not inherit the “gambling gene”. I won’t even play Lotto. I work too hard for my money to throw it away.
LOVE these Thursday throwback photos. Please include the location on as many as you can. Thank you!
Waiting for next week’s, fabulous as always! I always had coffee and a corn muffin at Royal Pastry. What a great time.
Thank you as always, Lily Goldstein
Thank you!
Maybe Steve Harmon could create a book with these great photos! 😊
Thank you. I am giving it serious consideration.
HURRAY!
Those oscillating fans were $30!?! As always, cool photos!
Hell, the Gray’s hot dogs were 25¢!
I need to see Mr. Harmon’s photos more than just once a week. I’m addicted to them!!!!!
Marvin Gardens. 83rd Street Quad on Broadway. Used bookshop on the corner of
Columbus and 89th Street. Bocusse, a French bistro on 90th St and Columbus, where St. Martin’s Tower Apartments is at 65 W. 90th St. and where I fell in love with the beautiful young waitress who served me the very first week I moved to NYC from LA in the early autumn of 1978, and was my nieghbor at 38 West 89th St.
Your photos have immunized me againist the present.
I always look forward to seeing Steve’s photos in WSR!
The fifth picture down is a woman wearing an orange mesh hat. To her left is something that looks like a grimacing face that Mr. Harmon would have liked to photograph. It looks like it is made of material. What in the world is that?
The ’70s. It was Nixon!
I meant to say on her right. I guess it is the sleeve of her coat???
I adore seeing Steve Harmon’s photos every Thursday. I realize it may not be possible for him to remember every location of the photos he has taken so long ago, but when possible, I would SO appreciate it if he would identify the locations at which these photos were taken.
These photos are great but the profiles are all a bit depressing. But then again, the ’70s were a bit of a depressing time, particularly on the UWS. Mr. Harmon, you captured the spirit well.
Such a delightful variety of denizens. The upturned mustache shot is killer!
Thank you!!
This set of breathtaking photographs, in my opinion, does NOT necessarily reflect the UWS, it powerfully depicts the depth of people somewhat out of sync with “the rest of us.” I hope they’re OK because, except for the Black woman with the wig and the woman next to her dog, they all look they are SO weighted down