Text and Photographs by Stephen Harmon
As the saying goes, “All good things must come to an end,“ and I find that I have come to the end of my images from those vanished days of the 1970s and 80s. The ones shown here are my last.
Next week West Side Rag will post a final Throwback Thursday featuring my favorite photos from those bygone years.
As always, I hope you find something to enjoy.
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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Stephen — I’m so sad to see such a good thing come to an end. Hopefully fellow readers will submit their own photos for a few “pop-up” articles here and there — I know I’ll miss it!
This weekly column has brought so much shared joy to multiple generations of Upper West Siders in my family. We appreciate you sharing your pictures, which as allowed us to share our memories! Thank you, thank you!
Love these photos. Thank you!
Oh no!
I’ll miss your Throwback Thursdays as much as I miss the Embassy Theaters!
Such great photos – Always find something to enjoy.
( In fact can’t think of one photo I haven’t)
Oh, no–say it ain’t so! I have so enjoyed your photos, Stephen, and hope you’ll continue to engage us with throwback 90s! Things change daily on the UWS, so photos from 30 years ago will be a treat.
Thank you for sharing your photos, they bring back many memories.
YES YES YES! Throwback 90’s is a fantastic idea . Don’t go away!!! We need you!!!
LOVE this Thursday feature. It’s like a “where’s waldo” game. I keep looking for my folks in these pics. Sad that it has come to an end but love that you shared these images with us, thank you so much!
THANK YOU for sharing all your wonderful photos with us! They are very special portraits of a bygone time and I loved seeing all of them.
Thank you for sharing y our wonderful photos!!
Thank you for this walk down memory lane series. I bet if you ran them again we’d still enjoy each and every photo.
I am inspired to take pictures ( iPhone these days) of our neighborhood. Your photos remind me that one day these images may evoke nostalgia and stir memories. Thank you
Thank you so much for the joy of this picture series. The glimpses of the world of my childhood are priceless.
Thanks for the memories. I’ve loved this glimpse into the UWS I grew up with.
That block in photo #7 looks *intensely* familiar, but I just can’t place it. Anyone?
Hi ecm, I finally remembered the name of that store on Columbus Avenue where I purchased Gladys the Goose.
Mythology.
Miss it still!
Ahoy, LLUWS! Over an hour ago I replied to your comment on this question in the U-Haul boxes story but it still hasn’t posted, grrr.
Yes, that’s basically what I came up with, too! Defying my instinct not to repeat myself, I herewith quote for you my original comment from 13 days ago:
“Oh, you mean Mythology Unlimited at 370 Columbus Avenue? That’d be my educated guess.
Say, speaking of 77th … if you can tell me the name of the restaurant at the NW corner of 77th & Amsterdam in 1980, before The Cottage arrived, I will sacrifice a Space Food Stick in your name and be eternally in your debt. It was Spanish or Mexican or something not too far removed.”
It was Dominican. Possibly Rancho Allegre but I am not sure. PS77 was diagonally across Amsterdam.
Thank you very much for the suggestion, and Dominican does sound right now that you mention it. Unfortunately, my web searches for Rancho Allegre (or Rancho Alegre) turned up nothing, and my 1980–81 White Pages (which doesn’t even list La Caridad!) again proved unhelpful. I’d like to think the NYC Department of Buildings or some other city agency maintains a list of previous business occupants of all addresses, and I’d also like to think it has a public Web portal, but I haven’t yet discovered the secret to that.
Diagonally? The school playground is just east of there across Amsterdam.
I think it’s the west side of broadway and 72nd too
Well, I took another long look via Street View (https://maps.app.goo.gl/sKnDrCb2bN55AMn7A), from the perspective of a little west of Broadway & 72nd, but am still unable to match anything I see to photo #7 — the narrowness of the street, the group of six or so brownstones, the apartment towers on either side of them, etc. The photo’s brownstones are pretty distinctive and have stoops, something I don’t spot looking west along 72nd.
Hey, Steve, do you recall where you took this one?
Pretty sure it’s the northwest corner of 72nd and Broadway, before the current building (with Bloomingdale’s Outlet on the ground floor) was built.
Thanks for the suggestion! Alas, I’ve just been up and down W. 72nd between Broadway & WEA (the block you meant, right?) in Street View — from 2011, no less — and was unable to match anything I saw with the photo. Besides, it looks like a one-way street and much too narrow to be 72nd. My first impression was that it was somewhere between WEA and Riverside in the W. 80s, FWIW. So dang familiar….
Stephen Harmon I do hope you will consider creating a book of all these many photographs. They are wonderful and capture a time very different from the one we are presently living in.
Can The Strand help?
PLEASE do that, Steve Harmon!You will not have trouble finding the right publisher–I’m sure of it.
Look up Times Books–licensed to Henry Holt & Co. It’s an imprint, I think.
And there must be a gallery that would give you a show!
I know Steve has had (or maybe still has?) some photos on display at the …New York Historical (formerly New York Historical Society)
Those were parts of other exhibits. (Such as an exhibit about delicatessens. A show just of Stephen Harmon photographs would be great!
Hey – how about crowd-sourcing old photos from your readers and posting a selection each week?
I’ve saved all the Throwback Thursday Rag editions so I’ll be able to revisit them again. Of course, these wonderful photographs couldn’t go on without end but at least I can scroll back whenever I feel nostalgic for the old days in the neighborhood thanks to the talent, vision and generosity of Stephen Harmon. Thank you for these wonderful memories.
Say it ain’t so. I love your photos—-brings back so many memories. But they sometimes make me sad about what we’ve lost
I’ve really enjoyed your photos., and am sorry to see them go. Thanks so much for sharing them.
Oh I love the Checker cabs. Thank you.
Stephen — Will you publish (or have you published already) a collection of your photos? As a long-exiled native of the UWS, I find your images poignant and evocative, and I would love to have a treasury of them to consult whenever I feel the need for poignance and evocation. Thank you for sharing them.
Is that you, Dick??
Thanks for the memories.
Hope to see you in another era soon.
ASAP!
Stehen-
I have loved all your photos. That was my era in NYC.
Sad to see you go. Like the hot dog cart in your first photo, which now exist almost nowhere except midtown, as they are quickly replaced by the larger carts that also sell hot dogs, pretzels, chicken kebabs, etc.
And Manny Hanny! A lo-o-ong history, beginning in the 1850s, but eventually merged with Chemical Bank in 1991. That only lasted for five years. in 1996, Chemical bought Chase, but took the Chase name. Thus both Manny Hanny and Chemical were gone by 1996.
But if you walk into a Chase bank, you can try to imagine either of the former banks as well.
As noted a few Thursdays ago (https://www.westsiderag.com/2025/01/23/throwback-thursday-uws-storefronts-and-businesses-of-the-1970s-and-80s#comment-560705), I opened my first NYC bank account at The New York Bank for Savings and effortlessly ended up at JPMorgan Chase (or whatever they want to call themselves), passing through four other banks/names along the way. A wild ride, but now it’s over.
My parents took me to the New York Bank for Savings on the NE corner of 86th and Broadway in the 60′ to open an account when I was six. I loved the bumblebee logo.
All of your work posted here has been great, but the photo of the red Converse is one of my favorite photos of anything ever.
Thank you and we’ll miss you!
This series was great. Thanks.
love these photos! thank you for continuing to post
Did you shoot in the ’90s?
Steve, please say yes!!!!!!!!
I’d greatly enjoy that, too. A good many treasures from the ’70s & ’80s survived into the ’90s.
So, https://www.westsiderag.com/2025/07/10/throwback-thursday-memories-of-the-upper-west-side-in-the-1970s-and-80s#comment-579926 …? Did I find your goose’s roost? The suspense is killing me.
I hope you saw my reply, could you somehow let me know?
I DID!!!!!!!!!! Mythology!!!
Thanks. Posting delays, bad timing, et cetera.
Any insights on my mystery restaurant…?
Thank you for these. Sorry to see you go. 😢
I greatly enjoyed your work!
This is one of my favorite parts of WSR. I say just start over from the beginning. We can’t do without these pics!
Oh my goodness, I look forward to these photos SO much! I don’t live in the city anymore and have cherished these Thursday delights, and shared them with other former UWSiders. Thank you for so much joyy.
Thank you so much! I’m not a nostalgic person, but these photos made me wish that some things had never changed — espcially the Embassy Theatre. I’ve enjoyed looking at each and every photo.
Those of you who have commented in past months on the 201 W. 72nd St. building, including the Embassy 72nd Street Twin 1 and 2 theaters, will observe that here we have pictures taken before (#8), during (#6), and after (#5) their demolition and replacement by The Alexandria apartments at Broadway & 72nd. This spot’s history has now been thoroughly documented photographically for the period in question. Thanks, Steve!
Steve, thanks especially for the photo (the penultimate shot of this penultimate installment) that includes the old West Side Copy Center, what may very well be Bagel Nosh (hard to tell, but it was where I had my first NYC bagel), legendary Weber’s, and a few other things, including snow. It looks like a very crisp day.
Thank you so much Steven Harmon. I have loved all of your photos.
Take more photos and post them!
Wishing you the best but sad to not find your photos in this newsletter anymore. Thank you for allowing me to remember some of the best years of my life residing on the UWS @ the West Side YMCA as a student. You are so gifted and touched so many hearts with your work. You have taken me back to special times and places. Best Regards
No, no, no!!!!!!! Say it isn’t so. I need my weekly fix of your photos. Can the Rag not publish them again and this time you can group them by different titles? We never tire of seeing them and in each photo, we will see something new that we missed first time around. If that can’t be done, then a support group needs to be organized so we can commiserate with and support each other!!
you will be missed!!!!!!!
Wish this series could go on forever. Thanks so much, Mr. Harmon, for letting us travel back in time (I was a toddler in those days so it’s nice to see what NYC looked like).
Penultimate means second to last. So, next time it’s over?
i feel so old-but of course i am
Thank you for the weekly trip down Memory Lane. Since I lived on the UWS from 1976 to 2005 (@RSD and W. 80th St.), so many of your shots looked so familiar.
Stephen, thank you so much for sharing your art. I’ve so enjoyed & looked forward to your brilliant captures of the New York we all loved so much. Sad this is coming to an end. Grateful we had it.
It has been such a joy to see these every week! My husband has been sending them to me. These photos make us both very happy.
It reminds me of different eras in my life, and also shows glimpses of the city before my time.
I will miss these throwbacks a lot. But like you said, all things must end. And there is only a finite number of images to share.
Thank you so much for making this for us. It is a wonderful gift to your audience and to NYC. ❤️🗽
Great pictures… if we did not have these…children would not believe the history.
What, no leg warmers? Jazz shoes on the sidewalk? Dance bags on the shoulder?
This has been such a delightful journey and I’d like to see it continue.
Can you publish a book of your photographs? What a lovely holiday gift that would make! Do you have it in you to pull out your camera and start a new collection of photos because at some point, we too, will be “throwbacks” and hopefully be alive and well to see the photographs. At the speed at which things are happening today with erecting buildings, technology, etc. in one year will already be a “throwback.”
Good luck to you and again thank you for this wonderful retrospective.
I think I must’ve missed a bunch of them. Maybe they can be reshown ?? And maybe you can do photos of the 1990s after that? 🙂
I moved to the UWS in 1977 from a 1905 single-family limestone in Brooklyn, which is on an historically-protected block. That block still looks as it did over a 100 years ago (except for the cars…). So I came here with a reverence for the past and a warm acquaintance with the UWS. To say the least, for all of what’s still good here, it ain’t what it used to be. Your beautiful photos are a treasure, an exceptional preservation of the past. Thank you for sharing it with us. I’m a writer, but I love photography and often a thousand words doesn’t cut it nearly as well. Bravo!
Thank you for your amazing images!
Thank you so much for sharing your art and all our memories of life here in that time. Simply wonderful.