By Rob Garber for the Bloomingdale Neighborhood History Group
Welcome to another installment in the Rag’s Historical Photo Challenge. The images above, which are related, were taken somewhere on the Upper West Side, sometime in the past. Can you figure out where, when, and what they show? Look closely; this week’s challenge photos, like the others in the series, include clues that will help you identify the scene, if you’re a dedicated UWS history sleuth.
And even if you don’t recognize the pictures—not to worry! Come back in two weeks and I’ll decode them, show you the clues that help identify them, and—best of all—tell you a story the images unlock, because this column isn’t just a test of your neighborhood knowledge; it’s also a rolling celebration of the people, buildings and events that wove the tapestry of the Upper West Side.
Ready? If you think you know where and when the photos were taken and what it shows, post your answer as a comment on this column.
Solution to Historical Photo Challenge #5
Subject: Street scene in the epicenter of the Upper West Side
Location: West side of Broadway looking north to West 66th Street
Date: November 1927
Image Source: New York Municipal Archives
Clues: Not much in this photo remains, a century later. Certainly not the El. The open space in the middle of the picture is still open—it’s Richard Tucker Park, filling the tight triangle where Broadway and Columbus Avenue converge. A definitive clue is the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Church, then at 1966 Broadway. It moved to the Upper East Side in 1938. The dark, bulky building to the far left, with a tower that looks like it belongs on a fortress, was pretty much just that: a New York State armory.
The rest of the story: The Frank E. Campbell funeral home on Madison Avenue on the Upper East Side is synonymous with funerals of the rich and famous–check out the Wikipedia list of celebrity funerals at Campbell’s. Staff at Frank Campbell’s “funeral church,” as he dubbed it, are now legendary for their discretion, but it wasn’t always so. Frank E. himself was the P.T. Barnum of funerals, innovating in a stultified industry and embracing publicity as a way of driving business. Campbell was so successful that he moved uptown in 1915 from his original location and built a large establishment at 1966 Broadway, between 66th and 67th streets. The apotheosis of Campbell’s career was the funeral of silent-film legend Rudolph Valentino in August 1926. Valentino died at the age of 31 of complications from appendicitis, lingering for several days while the nation waited anxiously. When Campbell opened the funeral home for public viewing of Valentino’s corpse, crowds essentially rioted in an effort to get in. Campbell secretly hired actors to pose as Italian fascists and guard the corpse, claiming they had been sent by Mussolini and boosting the drama another notch. When Valentino’s body was moved down Broadway to St. Malachy’s Church for a funeral service, an estimated 100,000 mourners and gawkers thronged around Campbell’s and lined the route to the church.
Shoutout to readers: Mystery photo No. 5 presented no challenge to many of you UWS sharpsters. Jeff knew that the Columbia warehouse morphed into ABC’s studios; Dan and Don B recognized the armory building, and both Alice and 30 years here knew that the Campbell’s sign was for Campbell’s Funeral Church. Hat tip to Leslie Kaminoff for citing ee cummings’ haunting poem Told Him, which refers to an el, albeit a different one than the 9th Avenue train in the image.
…and that’s the story behind the mystery image. Now scroll back to the top of the column and take on your next challenge, Sherlockians! If you’ve missed any pictures in this series, here is the complete collection.
About the author: Rob Garber has lived on the Upper West Side since the late 20th century and is a member of the Bloomingdale Neighborhood History Group. To learn more, visit their website at upperwestsidehistory.org. All photos in Upper West Side Historical Photo Challenge are used by permission.
Subscribe to West Side Rag’s FREE email newsletter here. And you can Support the Rag here.
Not a guess – just some praise. I love this new feature of the WSR. Even if I don’t know the answer, I love learning more about the history of the neighborhood that has been home for my entire life. Thanks and keep it up please!
Wonderful! I just discovered this fantastic series. Altho the link to it above, is broken.
the structure of the Caravan’s Restaurant makes me think it is now the Papaya King, southwest side of 72 and Bway.
Gray’s Papaya; Southeast. Not that I believe that’s where the photo was taken!
Please let me know that you meant Grays…as a former UWS I prefer Grays to PK
I think this a view at 74th Street & Amsterdam Avenue, photos taken in 1962.
72nd Street and Amsterdam Ave. Caravan Restaurant is now Grays Papaya.
This appears to be the location of Gray’s Papaya. I suspect that the Caravan was there before. Does the second picture have to do with Babe Ruth? He’s was a fan of the Papaya hot dog. Are these people surrounding Ruth’s apartment building for some milestone event.?
It looks like the NE corner of 72nd St.and West End Avenue, taken in the ’60s (men not all wearing hats). Waiting for a celebrity to exit that apartment building?
The NE corner of 72nd & WEA: https://maps.app.goo.gl/zRgHkVAuLmZZdkeh6 .
Resemblance: none.
72nd Street and Amsterdam Avenue, where Grey’s Papaya King currently is located.
72nd and Broadway, 1950s
I doubt the first photo shows the Gray’s Papaya site. First, the windows on the background building don’t match (cf. https://maps.app.goo.gl/pVwhSSunggAm5BoC8); even accounting for remodeling (and they look pretty original to me), their spacing wouldn’t change. Second, Tom Miller doesn’t mention Caravan Restaurant in his article on the building’s history (https://www.landmarkwest.org/72crosstown/176-west-72nd-street/). Then again, his wording in the same piece strongly implies both The Vitamin Shoppe and Gray’s Papaya arrived there on or after 2007, obviously far too late — so who knows!
In 1967, I was frequently on W. 72nd Street between Amsterdam and Columbus. Where Greys Papaya is now, was some kind of hot dog place even then. It was not called Caravan. It looks like people are standing on the corner looking down the block. They are standing in the street not on the sidewalk. The street is closed to traffic. There are also no parked cars visible. The mounted policemen prevent people from moving down the block. I suspect that something is being filmed on this block.
“[…]some kind of hot dog place even then” — yes, a Nedick’s; see the Landmark West! story in my comment above.
FWIW — probably nothing — the only Caravan place I’m aware of in NYC is the hotel Caravan Hall, formerly at 110 East 59th Street, site of the First World Science Fiction Convention, NYCon 1, held July 4th, 1939. It was a couple doors west of venerable Argosy Books, around even back then.
On second thought. I said above that I thought the pictures might show the filming of a movie. But I count 5 mounted policemen in the picture. I doubt that the City ever devoted that much police protection for making a movie. I suspect that the picture may show the visit of some public figure. The City officials wanted to be sure that absolutely nothing untoward happening. The crowd was smaller than suspected because of the rain.
Looks like Southeast corner of 72nd and West End Avenue. The Pier 72 restaurant was on that corner for years, until Covid killed it.
The SE corner in 2011: https://maps.app.goo.gl/wT8MKZcGqB1wJ1s96 . I’m not spotting much of a resemblance, including the building windows across 72nd.
I’ll go along with the people that say it’s 72nd and Broadway where Greys Papaya is.
The second photograph looks like either funeral procession or something connected to President Kennedy’s assassination. That looks like Central Park West to me heading south. Could be the Majestic or the Century apartments.
The connection to the two photographs would be 72nd Street — one on Central Park West and the other on Broadway!
Could it has something to do with the assassination of John Lennon — also on 72nd Street on Central Park West.
Am I correct?
No, I don’t think so: (1) The Gray’s Papaya site (the 176 W. 72nd St. building) can be definitively ruled out for a few reasons; see my comments above. (2) The 1st and 2nd photos show the same building, so one couldn’t be on Broadway and the other on CPW. (3) CPW would be an odd place to find a restaurant — not unheard of, just unusual. (The lost Mayflower Hotel at 13–21 CPW included a restaurant, Henry Stampler’s Filet Mignon, but nope, I’ve checked and that’s not the spot we’re looking for.) (4) The Majestic and the Century don’t match the photos architecturally. (5) Clothing styles — not that I’m any great expert thereon! — argue against an early-1980s time frame (John Lennon’s assassination).
Sorry!
72nd st & broadway, i think
Many people seem to be assuming that these two photos are of different buildings, but I believe they are of the same building. Look at the far left of the second photo — that’s the Caravan Restaurant sign from the first photo. And for that reason, I don’t think this is 72nd and Broadway. If the building in the second photo is in fact the same as the building in the first photo, it looks too big to fit in the space on the east side of Broadway/Amsterdam north of the Dorilton at 71st Street. Having said all that…I have no idea where this is. As many others have undoubtedly discovered by now, there seems to no record on the internet of a Caravan Restaurant.
Could the “Caravan Restaurant” have been a movie set? After all, the collective memory of this board covers just about every eating establishment between Columbus Circle and 125th Street, river to Central Park for the last 85 years..
That possibility had occurred to me as well, but a Web search for “Caravan Restaurant” in combination with such terms as “film”, “movie”, “IMDB”, “cast”, “filing location”, and so on turned up nothing. Maybe someone else will have better luck.
Perhaps neighborhood cinephiles recall a movie with this restaurant in it?
I only wish our collective restaurant memory covered the eatery at the NW corner of Amsterdam & 77th in 1980.
I agree 100%, this is one building, and not the one at the Gray’s Papaya site, either.
And yes, this Caravan Restaurant is quite elusive! One detail I can add, visible in the 2nd photo with a bit of squinting, is that it offered seafood. And in the 2nd photo, might the last digit of the building number on the canopy be a 9?
OK I give up. But I think this picture was taken on December 9, 1980. I believe the Caravan was located on the northeast corner of Columbus Avenue and W. 72nd Street. The scene shown is the day after the assassination of John Lennon. I clearly remember it was a rainy day. People are looking east toward the Dakota.
The building at the northeast corner of 72nd and Columbus does not look like the building in this photo at all, and has clearly been there for many decades. https://maps.app.goo.gl/5nBdK5YgXAnA9fxe8
Wouldn’t the clothing style rule out 1980? It seems rather earlier to my fashion-untutored eye.
Here’s the NE cor. 72nd & Columbus: https://maps.app.goo.gl/MUSP4Fr1yRjZXbG46 . I’m not seeing any resemblance.
Rain is not an uncommon occurrence.
It’s a fair guess, but I would put the timing of the photos sometime in the mid 1960s based upon the style of the clothes most people are wearing (note the skinny ties); also there seems to be far more men than women in the photo and many are carrying cameras so I would surmise this was a press event rather than a spontaneous outpouring of grief by the locals.
Yes, if it was 1980 everybody would be wearing down vests
Although I remain in the dark about the location of these photos, by applying the scientific method and Street View I have been able to rule out a few intersections with great confidence, *assuming the mystery building still exists*:
72nd & Broadway, 72nd & Columbus, 72nd & WEA, 79th & Amsterdam, 79th & Bway, 86th & Amsterdam, 86th & Columbus, 86th & Bway, 96th & Columbus, 96th & Amsterdam, and 96th & Bway.
If the building in question is no longer around (as may well be the case along 96th St. especially), then all bets are off for a given intersection.
Still, this information might be of some use in finding our quest object.
I think perhaps the building entrance in the second photo is on a one way cross street (i.e., not 72nd, 79th, 86th, or 96th), and the street in the background in the first photo is Broadway.
It’s certainly possible it’s not on a major street. Of course that makes identifying it much more difficult! I thought I’d start the process of elimination with the major streets, as one has to start somewhere.
Then again, the background street might not be Broadway….
I’m stumped but you can clearly see Joel Maisel, ex husband of comedian Mrs Maisel in the top photo on the right side. So that does put it in the 1960s
As Rob Garber reads these comments he smiles into his beer.
Neither the scene or the clothing would coincide with the Lennon assassination. It would be mobbed with people and they would be wearing winter coats since it was December. Judging by the clothing, the timeline looks more like 1970s since the men aren’t wearing hats. The photo with the police on horseback looks like it could be CPW. I don’t remember a Caravan Restaurant so it remains a puzzlement!
1. I agree that the two photos are of the same building. 2. Entrances to apartment buildings are on the side street not the avenue (except for WEA and CPW) so would that make this a NE corner? 3. the address on the awning appears to be two numbers – which would make it the CPW-Columbus block. 4. counter to that point – is the tree on the left side of the top photo on the other side of the street of is it in the median – meaning could this be Broadway? 5. What is the whiteish object near the Caravan sign that seems to be a cover or awning?
1. Yes.
2. I doubt there were [m]any restaurants on WEA, so I suppose it can be ruled it out, but that leaves CPW as a possibility — again, aside from the restaurant problem.
3. I found the image’s resolution too low to be able to tell the number of digits in the building number. How confident are you that it’s two? But I agree that if it is two digits, you’ve likely identified the block (range) … except that both Amsterdam and WEA begin at 59th Street, so might it have been an avenue-side apartment not far north from there and probably now long gone?
4. Could the tree even be on the near side?
5. If we’re looking at the same object, it appears to me to be the curved top of another awning, with some indistinguishable text just below it.
Have any luck making out additional text on the near side of the restaurant, aside from “SEA FOOD”?
All of the mounted officers are wearing cloth hats. But all mounted officers have been wearing protective helmets for many years. Googling “mounted New York police officers”, I found a photo from 1974 in which the officers were already wearing helmets. This tell me that the photos were taken before 1974.
Ah Ah Ah. Steve Danielson above mentions a white object in the first photo. You have the Caravan sign. Below it you have a tattered folded awning. Below that a flat white object shaped sort of like a mushroom that someone may be holding over his head. I think this is a light reflector and this is a movie set. Google “movie light reflector” etc.