Text and Photographs by Stephen Harmon
When I was photographing everyone and everything on the Upper West Side in the vanished days of the 1970s and 80s, I often tried to get a car, a cab, or a bus in the photo, because I knew those vehicles would look so different from whatever would be in existence 40 or 50 years later. Here are some images, all of which have vehicles very different from the SUVs that are so prevalent today.
Stephen Harmon is a longtime Upper West Sider, a retired lawyer, and a world-class photographer whose work is on display 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.
Check out our audio interview with Stephen Harmon on Rag Radio — HERE.
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Oh another incredible group of photos! They are so evocative of a time that I too spent a lot of time wandering the same neighborhood that they break my heart. The old people in particular…
The first photo with Argo diner and Jezebel – I know that block so well but can’t place it. Someone help?
Hi, Lauren – the Argo Restaurant was on the northeast corner of Columbus Ave. and W. 72nd, and the liquor store and Jezebel continued north on Columbus.
What was the diner’s name at 84th and Broadway? Wasn’t that also the Argo? Or near there?
Thank you, yes of course!
You’re more than welcome! 🙂
Steve, do you have any photos of our beloved and long lost Checker cabs? I love your photos – I moved here in 1973 and so enjoy seeing the way things were. Thank you.
I really love these throwback photos. I think they are generally 1980s and early 90s rather than 70s and 80s.
My first apartment was furnished by Workbench and Laytner’s! Miss them both, especially Laytner’s.
I love all the details that evoke the time in which these photos were taken: the movie names on the theater marquee, the fashions, the phone booths, the fruit prices, and of course, the cars!
great pics. the world does not miss the 80’s car aesthetic, though.
I do. These cars had tops with large flat tops. Perfect for kids to sit on.
Love these! My favorite in this batch is ‘Queen Elizabeth’ bending forward to check the merchandise, with the milk crate in the foreground and the umbrella and sensible shoes to complete the ensemble. 🙂
Teachers was my home away from home. I loved that place. I loved the food, the bar, and the people there. It was the upper west side’s living room.
Wasn’t there also a Teachers Too restaurant that opened close by? The old Shakespeare & Co. had a great cafe on the second floor, where you could look over Broadway. That was the best bookstore.
Ronnie,
The West 81st and Broadway Shakespeare and Co. never had a café. In its last years, the second floor was expanded westward, but no coffee or snacks.
Yes, Shakespeare and Co. on Broadway and 81st definitely had a cafe, and I’m 100% sure. I ate there many times.
Nope. The owners thought about it, but didn’t open a cafe.
Nope, it never did.
Bill and Steve thought about it after B+N opened the mega store just up Broadway, but it they didn’t open a cafe. Then the location closed in 1996.
Jay, since I too have quite vivid memories of a cafe up there, is it possible I’m thinking of Bloomsday 2 rather than S&Co.? That would explain it.
Teachers Too, c. 1981–Jan. 1996, 2271 Broadway between 81st & 82nd.
I spent many a pleasant hour in Shakespeare & Co.’s cafe, though even more shopping for books there. Remember the small concession shop they had just south of the Broadway entrance, where one could pick up a beverage or ice cream? Or was that from back in the Bloomsday 2 days…?
There WAS a Teachers Too. They were one block apart, as I recall.
Yes, Teachers Too was a block or two north, both were great.
Yup!
I miss Manhattan before it became a suburb.
Tell me which suburb has the Met, either the Musuem or Opera?
There are big problems with Bloomberg’s push to make Manhattan (at least south of 125th Street on the west side) only for the well off, but it’s far from a suburb.
Like the pictures, it seems most of the pictures are from 72nd to 81st
Not a luxury apartment in sight, businesses thriving, community atmosphere, creative neighbors, affordable rents. What went wrong?
Bloomberg … so many of these luxury high rises were set by him. I went to a protest with my dad as a kid in the early 2000s, at a community meeting where they were deciding what to do with the highline and surrounding areas in hudson yards. That was when the proposals for the luxury high rises in chelsea and the hudson yards began, as they knew that the highline would skyrocket the surrounding real estate value. The room was filled with protestors – mostly seniors – holding signs and demanding that the new buildings would provide affordable housing. Their demands weren’t met. Bloomberg is much to blame for the insane housing costs in our city. So many luxury condos bought by foreign millionaires and billionaires, left empty to hold their investments. Meanwhile everyone else struggles to find a home.
Democrats.
Nah. Stop blaming Democrats for everything. Republicans tank economies nationwide.
finance hadn’t yet been thoroughly deregulated, had to wait for Clinton’s second term.
Don’t worry, OPOD & gang have a plan in the works to send them all to Alcatraz.
No one’s going to be sent to alcatraz, but nice to know that you people are in favor of mailing people based on feelings and not actual crimes. Oh, and yeah Jan 6 was a crime. So is defrauding the state of NY.
Rent gouging.
The photo of the child and black fellow chatting is very touching. Cannot believe it’s been that far back that A Room With a View was playing! Love all of your photos. You are a special artist.
I miss the quality wool coats-great one being worn by flower selling man.
Loved seeing the flower guy who I remember. And the Embassy 72 next to Workbench which was such a great store. I still have my beautiful (real) oak pieces! Thank you for these pics – always look forward to WSR Thursdays!!!
I moved into 1 Lincoln Plaza in 1978. It was the only luxury high-rise in the Lincoln Center area at the time (unless you count 10W66). I loved Orloff’s downstairs. While we rarely see a car that dates back to the 80’s, the trains on the #1 and #3 first appeared in 1983 and will be with us for another few years.
Yes, that’s when you didn’t have to climb up to heaven to get in a cab.
Before the homogenization of everything. Urbane, authentic, so much character. NYC when it did not feel like a playground for transplants and the rich.
In all these pictures the neighborhood looks dirty and run down.
I was only a kid in the 1980s but I remember the UWS as dark, grimy and dangerous.
Stop looking at the past thru rose-colored lenses.
It’s true that it was much more dangerous in the 70s, 80s and even well into the 90s. Everyone I knew got mugged. Everyone. As kids we were chased by gangs with baseball bats. Once, my mother and I happened into the crossfire of a gun fight. We were just parking our car in our garage, I could go on for hours about the violence and degradation I witnessed. Mind you, I was a well-to-do, nerdy private school kid living in a famous CPW co-op. No one was sheltered from it. Beyond anecdotes, it was objectively much, much, much more dangerous than it is now. On the other hand, let’s be honest, it was infinitely cooler, and freer and more fun. The downside of safety and order and affluence is that we’ve lost our edge. Sure, we still have culture, but it’s kind of boring. It _is_ kind of suburban. Look at all the chain stores. It’s like the Short Hills Mall. And more importantly all the suburban people decided it was perfectly safe to live here. When there is less risk, you don’t feel as alive. We don’t even have the Bear Bar anymore. That place was the last insane, lawless and endlessly entertaining institution to disappear. And that was like 15 years ago I think. Long gone, all of it pretty much. I’m ok with how things are now, but I do miss what we had. I think we all do, those of us who grew up here and lived to tell the tale. 🙂
Odd thing to say. The neighborhood does not look dirty or rundown. I know about dirty and run down, I grew up in the Bronx in the 1970’s in a neighborhood that abutted one that was dirty and run down. A place where you didn’t go out without carrying “mugging money”.
The upper west side was lived-in and vibrant. Did it look like Orlando or Toronto? No. But it was always full of families and elderly people outside on the streets. These pictures capture the way it was and no rose tinting required.
Air pollution (hydrocarbons, so not CO2) was worse in the 1980s. Remember, new cars only had to have catalytic converters in model year 1975. and yes, I realize that Honda Civics from the second half of 1970s were an exception; they didn’t require catalytic converters.
The point: Hydrocarbons make things look grimy, and cars from the early 1970s were still a significant fraction of cars in the 1980s.
Also, now some of the older buildings that have been cleaned have had the brick and stonework sealed with ugly “clear” plastic sealer, so they remain “clean”. For examples: See some of the buildings along the north side of 73rd St. between Columbus and CPW.
Sorry you don’t have any rose-colored glasses. Yes the neighborhood was run down, but I had the best time of my life on the UWS from the 70’s to 90’s. It was FUN FUN FUN.
I don’t agree with you at all. If you consider unique individualized businesses, neon signage, and people in clothing for the period to be “dirty and run down,” that’s says more about you than anything else. I don’t see anything of the kind. I certainly don’t see dozens of empty store fonts like we have now.
If that Dodge Dart is a slant six engine it may still be running somewhere …
Always so charming and wonderful archival history. I think that I saw the water tower on top of the Sophia Storage building in one. I can see it from my window now.
The cars are very quickly becoming obsolete and this fact makes me, an automotive engineer, envious of the civil engineers and the architects that are most of the time outlasted by their creations.
The older gentleman with the black coat, talking to the woman – That was Monsignor George Murphy, who was a parish priest at Holy Trinity Church on W., 82nd St. He served in that church from the 1950s to late 1980s. He was a frequent visitor at McAleer’s on Amsterdam Ave. They are both standing on Amsterdam Avenue on the West sidewalk between 79th and 78th St. (photographer looking north). Pickles taken around 1984-85. The Chesterfield (bldg with scaffolding in the background) was being converted into a condo around then.
When I was younger I would say this changed and that changed when I looked at old photos but now I say it’s all the same and nothing changed. I think the older we get the less we focus on style and design of things and focus on the people in the photos and people never change.
These photos remind me that we are just temporary owners/renters on the UWS. The buildings will remain, but the tenants always change with each new generation.
I’ve lived in my apartment for 30 years, but others came before me, and many more will take my place once I leave. Remember to make the most of each day, and realize that in the future, UWS residents will be nostalgic for the good ole days of 2025:)
Beautiful photo series!!!!
I do believe that’s actor Griffin Dunne in the pic with Sleepy’s in the background.
Aah, my salad days! These gems have me feeling so sentimental. Teachers, Marvin Gardens, Boulevard, Ernie’s, Al Buon Gusto, Cafe Luxe, Dallas BBQ, The Works, The Coca Cola Store and Charivari(s). It was a great time to be a young guy starting out on the UWS!
Thanks for sharing these with us.
Great to see “A Room With a View” on the marquee as it was the first movie I saw in the U S. after moving to NYC from Dublin in 1986. Although I saw it at the Paris Theater beside the Plaza Hotel and I think the theater in the photo is the long-gone Embassy on 73rd and Broadway?
Fabulous photos – as always! Thank you, Steve!
Who remembers the name of that pub near 79th street on Amsterdam Ave, with the singing staff??? It didn’t survive for long, as I recall, but it manage to make our evenings more interesting.
Those were the days.
Such vibrant crisp color! I appreciate your fondness for the corner of Broadway and W. 72nd,