Tuesday, June 14, 2011

A lower Second Avenue now and then

I had forgotten about this project ... earlier this year, I was trying to line up a now-and-then with the lower stretch of Second Avenue at Houston ... to document the soon-to-be-demolished buildings at 9 and 11 Second Avenue...

First up, how the block looked in an undated photo via the NYPL Digital Library of Second Avenue... looking north to First Street... The Mars Bar building once housed the Woolworth Theater.



...and from this year...



...a little bigger...



It's not quite right, but you get the idea. I always felt rushed with the shots ... this required a trip upstairs to cafe area of the Whole Foods Bowery...

Jeremiah has more on this stretch of Second Avenue here.

9 comments:

Media glut said...

In the first photo, that is quite a building on the corner of 1st St where the gas station is now.

Troy said...

Agreed Larry. Huge baths (at least from the sign). I do wish we had those size of sidewalks though.

Laura Goggin Photography said...

Pretty awful. I can only imagine the scene a year from now - will resemble a turnpike rest stop.

Marty Wombacher said...

NIce post and great photos. And thanks for taking one for the team by having to suffer the mob at Whole Foods!

Anonymous said...

Very depressing. This is not progress. The sidewalks have become too narrow.The streets look even filthier and less even. The street lights were replaced with ugly highway lighting. Beautiful buildings are replaced by uglier buildings or parking lots. Even became uglier.

Let's at least take a step back in the right direction by widening the sidewalks back to their original width.

- East Villager

BabyDave said...

So Manhattan Storage was a similar business back then? It and Anthology Film Archives seem soon to be the last remnants of the old, old days still standing.

Anonymous said...

@ Goggla--exactly!!!!

Anna said...

I grew up above the mars bar, 11 second, since I was three. Its an amazing block and neighborhood of history. It will be missed just like all the others that came down.

Unknown said...

Fabulous, even if I've only found it five years later...