Author: reachesfar

I have always loved to look at old photographs.  The two archives that I’m sharing with you today are very special to me. I was born on the upper west side of Manhattan at Women’s Hospital. My family lived in the city from 1890. They also lived  in the Bronx and the Rockaways.

My partner Andrew’s family on his mothers side comes from the Five Towns in Long Island. Andrew’s fathers family came to America in 1840. And his other side on his father side came in 1820 they were from Cincinnati Ohio. His ancestors fought in the civil war. His fathers line is from Fort levenworth where Andrew’s grandfather was born. They were there during indian raids we were told. They would hide the children in pickle barrels. They had a store and made and sold covered wagon covers to the goverment and to people going west. They also made saddles, clothing, tents and  boots. Andrew’s grandfather and his brothers were Jewish Cowboys. They lived in Leavenworth Kansas when George and Lily Armstrong Custer lived there. His great grandfather was the treasurer of the first synagogue of Kansas, Bnai Jeshuran . At this moment in time I’m very excited because we just found family photos of Andrew’s family on the plains. I’ve begun to look at the Jewish Civil War soldiers that were his relations.

Photographs take us all back to another time; to so many lives that came before us. When I got notice that the New York Archives went online, I was terribly excited. No one really owns photographs. They are their for us all to discover our history.

The archives I’m linking to here are just among a couple of many other archives on different subjects. Once your there, I hope you enjoy all the wonder.

Pennsylvania Station: Photo from Detroit Publishing Company

Pennsylvania Station: Photo from Detroit Publishing Company

Skating in Central Park 1895
Photo from the book “Once Upon A City” by  Grace M. Myers

click here to visit New York City Department of Records website

Click here to see Manhattan photos (77,747 photos) from
the NYC Department of Records Photo Archives

Click here to photos of the Rockaways (2,382 photos) from
the New York City Department of Records Photo Archives 

I want to thank Vivian Rattay Carter for her permission to use her wonderful photograph of a beautiful sunrise on the Rockaway Boardwalk for my video about Playland.  The Rockaway’s are a place of continual change. There is the past, the present and the future in all things. Her extraordinary photograph is of the present, where life is going on now. She continually captivates the Rockaway’s in it’s continuous cycles of blossoming. In her new book “Rockaway Beach” from Arcadia Books “Images of America” series she takes us to the past and shares with us much that we have not known before. Through people like Vivian Carter who captures the ever changing peninsula of the Rockaway’s, we will find the future of this extraordinary place. For once you have been to the Rockaway’s, it never leaves you. Please visit her fabulous blog, Oy Vey Rockaway to buy your signed copy. www.rockviv.wordpress.com

 The publisher Arcadia Books website says about the author:

Vivian Rattay Carter is a columnist for Rockaway’s The Wave newspaper and publishes a local events website, Oy Vey Rockaway. A lawyer and civic activist, she has served on the board of directors of the Rockaway Civic Association and as a lay leader of the First Congregational Church, whose earliest members included many of the pioneers of Rockaway Beach.

Read the book and find out how this great man was forgotten and how he has been rediscovered. This is only a small sample of this mans work.

The photos here and on my online archive are courtesy from the following book:

Music:
“Dancing in Streets” by Martha & the Vandellas
“Twistin’ the Night Away” by Sam Cooke
“Beyond the Sea” by Bobby Darin
“Theme to a Summer Place” by the Percy Faith Orchestra