Text and Photographs by Stephen Harmon
When I was photographing the Upper West Side in those vanished days of the 1970s and 80s, one of my goals was to create images that had what, in photography, is referred to as a “sense of place.” A sense of place has been defined as both the essence and character of a location and the emotional bonds individuals form with it. Sense of place photography captures a moment in time when a viewer can sense that they are or have been there. How one achieves this is, of course, an ineffable mystery. Some photographers say it is done with light or by focusing on icons or details or people. I’m not sure if I achieved that sense of place in the following photos, or, if I did, how I did it. I just hope you find something to enjoy.
Check out our interview with Harmon — HERE.
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Wonderful photos! Now I want to see the movie at the Embassy…..Dominick and Eugene! Thank you Steve Harmon!
I saw the wonderful and important documentary “The Word is Out” at the Embassy in the 70’s– about the gay rights movement. I miss that theater!
Saw it there! It was a good movie!
I want to see ANY movie at the Embassy 72nd St!
One consistency: The store above Gray’s Papaya always sells mattresses. Nice pics, thank you!
Lol, I bought one from there once!
It’s really a shame that grimy old building next to the beautiful Dorilton hasn’t been redeveloped into something more fitting of the location
Weber’s! Could always find useful, affordable gadgets there.
I love revisiting my growing up neighborhood and am so glad you recorded it in your wonderful photos. Thank you Stephen !!
Thanks for throwback Thursdays. This week’s photo batch is one of my favorites.
Thankfully, the beautiful buildings are still there.
Thank you. I love this neighborhood! I have only been here 20 years so less than many others but I still think it is the greatest place in the world to live.
You absolutely did!
Love my old neighborhood. I’m glad you photographed the heck out of it, Steven.
The Prime meat/Chick in store on Broadway across from the Apthorpe was a great butcher shop. I used to get meat there to make steak tartare.
This might be my favorite photo collection yet. Thanks Steve!
Please keep these incredible photos coming. How about adding Throwback Tuesdays?
Weber’s !! Sigh
Each of these photos feels like the UWS and caught the “sense of place” currently and historically. Thanks!
That rainy stretch of sidewalk next to the subway station….you can just about smell it. I don’t mean in a bad way. Just a sense of time and place way. Wonderful series. Thank you, once again.
These are my favorites so far and I’ve loved all the Throwback Thursday photos. I have a snowy day photo of a few early morning UWSiders entering the original W. 72nd St. subway entrance taken by Ben Packer that also captures the “sense of place” and which has brought me tremendous enjoyment over the years. Thank you, Stephen, for your photo of the building and all the others.
Love these photos. They take me back to my days of walking back from work heading home to the warmth of my parent’s apartment. Thanks for sharing!
We look forward to your photos every week!
Wonderful – as always!
Thanks, Steve
Apologies from a forever UES folk who has always wanted to move to the UW: What is that wonderful, clever gold-screwtopped bottle-topped building? I don’t recall ever seeing it, or seeing it lit like that, before. Love it!
If it’s the fifth pix, it’s the Ansonia, Broadway @ 73 St. One of the great Neil Simon comedies with Walter Matthau was filmed in part from within an Ansonia apartment.
Are you talking about the fourth photo down? The building with the two large turrets next to the small park? If so that’s the Beresford Building at 81st and Central Park West. I grew up on that block in the mid 60’s through the late 1970’s.
The Beresford (Emery Roth, 1929) actually has three such towers; only a sliver of the northeast one is visible in Stephen’s photo, taken from near the AMNH’s main entrance. It has long been my NYC dream residence, though Paul E. Singer needn’t worry about having me as a neighbor any time soon.
do you have any photos of the high 80’s on Broadway? I remember so many great stores and restaurants, including the homemade ice cream/penny candy store. I also remember the blackout in ’77 and all the smashed storefronts.
Love these! Especially the water tank (ok – yes – often on an evening I gaze out my window at those iconic rooftop tanks) – and that wonderful street corner proliferation of confusing signage! We need a “Throwback Thursday” photo album – hard cover – real book!
Just wonderful. Beautifully captures time and place.
I lived in NYC in the late 80’s/early 90’s. I wasn’t lucky enough to live on the UWS, but I spent A LOT of time there, as it was my favorite neighborhood. Seeing movies, going to the museum, or just walking around.
Weber’s! I totally forgot about Weber’s but it was awesome. For anyone young, it was like an odd lot/TJ Maxx//Homegoods type overstock store but less “fancy,” with a lot more variety and randomness, and much cheaper. Everything from clothes to home goods to random things. One day there’d be $1 surge protectors, or painted wooden stepstools for $5, the next week those were gone but there were brand-name something else. If you needed something random, you’d check Weber’s frst.
Webers was an odd-lots kind of place, similar to Jack’s. But the range they carried! I bought a pair of Merrells there, before I ever “heard” of Merrells. Got a silk 2-piece dress for like $5 because its size label was way wrong. They always had masking tape. I’m still using some Weber’s linen dishcloths. The price was irresistible, even though the calendars printed on them were a year or so out of date. CDs, books, candy, soap. Gosh, I miss Webers.
Nice selection!
Weber’s, coin parking meters and a payphone — no booth. Those were the days.
I love these photo collections and look forward to seeing them each week. This week’s final photo, however, is not as much of a throwback as the others. The Crown Vic taxi in the distance was not introduced until the early 90s and there is an AM New York newspaper box on the corner. AM New York was not launched until 2003.
I walked through Webers every single time I passed in walking home from anywhere even near 72nd Street & B’way to my place on W. 66th. It’s got to be about 30 years or more since my last trip there but I still have needle nose pliers, a lady’s hammer (a little lighter than regular), picture hooks about 3 screw drivers and all kind of stuff that have come in handy over the years. I’ve taken them all with me from NYC to Dallas, to Scottsdale, AZ and back to NYC again.
I miss that place.
I actually recognize all of them!
Wonderful photos of a special place and time!! I try to describe to young folks how much more exciting, creative, unique, and magical NYC was back in the 60s, 70s, and 80s… Even though it was funkier, it was also a lot more fun! Eccentric and artistic people were everywhere and most cafés, restaurants, shops, and boutiques were owned by the people behind the cash registers!… and they were passed down from one generation to the next. Greenwich Village wasn’t the only neighborhood with a name… there were dozens of them including Yorkville, Germantown, Murray Hill, Turtle Bay, Chelsea, Beekman Place, Sutton Place, Gramercy Park, etc. The city hadn’t been turned into one giant, sterilized, “gentrified”, giulianized corporate park and strip mall. Now, every neighborhood is like all the others with the same CVS and Walgreens, the same Starbucks and Sheratons… The NYC you photographed, even with its litter, was an enchanting adventure, where anything was possible, including coming with one suitcase from your little hometown in the dead of Winter and creating your truest self! <3
Thanks for some lovely memories!
Thank you for sharing this. I look forward to it each week. I grew up on 72nd Street, and still live in the area. The pictures are great!
These all bring back great memories of the UWS! In the ’75 my girlfriend and I moved to 77th street, bliss in a two room apartment! We knew all these places.
We’re a legion of admirers of the posted people you’ve captured and here you demonstrate a keen and poetic gift for composing architectural shots. The lead daylight picture of the W. 72nd station and its cheery primary color palette is the finest of it I’ve seen.
As a very recent transplant (2013), I really love this series! Whenever I see a senior UWS’er pause by the benches on the median (often, while being pushed in a wheelchair) I am tempted to ask them what the neighborhood was like back in their day. Now I can see what they saw. Glad that most of the places in the pictures are still recognizable today.
Wonderful selection; treasured memories. The 72nd Street subway station looks much better there with the wooden doors than it does today!
Does anyone remember the old C&L restaurant? Located between 71st and 72nd Street on the west side of Broadway. It was huge and they had the best open hot roast beef sandwiches au jus. I believe they also owned tiptoe in in the high ’80s on Broadway.. that would have been in the late 50s early 60s. The brasserie on the east side also had great open hot roast beef sandwiches au jus.
Please Steve, make a coffee table size book called Upper West Side with all your photographs. I miss the embassy theater but I’m so glad that so many others of those places still remain.
I remember those days & location, ESPECIALLY the Beautiful building with the roar iron gate THE Dakota, lol , I wire that building for cable , Manhattan Cable, back then 96st East to west was the only place that had Cable, NO OTHER PLACE.