An old silent home-movie film of Times Square from 1966. The film was quite worn, but we did what we could and posted it here anyway. How much has it changed?
I was sixteen in 1969 and just got my drivers license. I drove with two other guys from Halifax, Nova Scotia down to New York City. We stayed at the Times Square Motor Inn. Spent four days in the Big Apple and saw all the sights (Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, United Nations Building, Madison Square Garden, Radio City Music Hall "The Rockettes!!!" etc.) We walked and walked all over the place. I was hoping to see the Yankees play but they were on the road. So we went out to Shea Stadium to see the Mets. It was a Saturday afternoon and Little League Day at Shea so all the kids that attended the game (around 30,000) were wearing their little league uniforms. The Mets played the Astros and won the game 4-0. Cleon Jones hit a two-run homer and Tom Seaver pitched a two-hitter gem. Of course that was the year the Mets went on to win the World Series. It was a wonderful trip with many great memories. 😊
We left NY in 1966, when I was 6. We arrived in Miami on 8-1-66--just outside of Coconut Grove and Biscayne Bay. What a paradise--swimming with fish and manatees, flying kites, riding bikes, climbing trees, playing ball, etc.
I was born at St. Vincent's Hospital... in Indianapolis. But I do have some Manhattan origins. My parents took a vacation in Manhattan, and the number of months that was before my birth indicates I may be a New York City kid! 😃
@@josephoneill49ify A couple of times, but not until the 1990s. One was while I was on a research mission to Maine. The other was an organizational conference where, among other things, we heard a talk by Ramsey Clark in a private apartment in Chelsea.
I've been visiting NYC many times since 1967 and this is the Times Square I prefer vs. today with all the crowds, vaping, selfies and vendors. You can barely breathe walking through the crowd, especially in the summer.
I agree and I would rather see the traffic of then when it had real cars and buses instead of today when it looks like toys. I am a baby boomer who grew up in NYC during the Mad Men era.
Agreed. I don't mind a crowd so long as it is moving along, but there are too many reasons to stand still in Times Square anymore. What I really, really dislike about Times Square these days is the fake Elmos, the super heroes, the fake Mickey Mouses, all vying to be photographed with you.
I was 5 weeks old when this was filmed. In some ways it is hard to believe that this was shot during my lifetime. Still, I would rather live in that lost world than the trashcan we live in now.
Thanks for the memories! I was 17 and about to graduate from high school in beautiful northeastern NJ where I grew up and after the summer, began to attend Traphagen School of Fashion/art/design in the theater district on West 53rd and 7th Ave. across from the Americana hotel! The school was like Harry Potter's Hogwart school in some ways, very old and rustic and like a Parisian atelier! Loved it and became a professional fashion illustrator working in Manhattan. I grew up going into Manhattan almost every single weekend as my late father belonged to the Downtown Athletic Club where my two older brothers took swim lessons. My father worked around Wall Street and my mother used to drag me all around midtown, lots of fun going shopping and out to eat at Schrafft's! I remember Horn and Hardart as well! ♥♥♥
I was working on Wall St. at that time. Sometimes after work, we would go get dinner and then go see a movie in Times Square. It was so exciting, lots of fun.
April 8 was Good Friday in 1966. We were still living in South Bend at the time , but would move to New Jersey almost exactly one year later. Then I became immersed in the city's subway system. There used to be a Howard Johnson restaurant by Rockefeller Center that I remember.
@@jennifersman7990 It was at the ground floor of the famous Brill building where so many 60's hit were written. They had records but their sheet music selection was the best!!
20th century was better in many other ways! Think this society has gone down hill ever since the beginning of the 21rst century, a lot of it because of the greed that exists at the top one percent and 19 percent, the "Dreamhoarders" leaving the rest in the dust, a book by Richard Reeves of the Brookings Institute, well worth reading and because of the war on drugs lost! Everything is way more expensive and we thought inflation was bad in the 1970s?? LOL Ha!
@@jamesmack3314 He probably wasn't drafted. If the government sent you a draft notice you just ignored it if you did not want to go. There was nearly 500,000 draft avoiders during the Vietnam War era and few were ever prosecuted. Its like jury duty notices, never show up the first time and don't except registered mail. Had a number jury notices and I never show. They don't won't me on jury anyways because everybody gets an innocent vote from me.
@@vanillaexplosion99 I like the jury duty analogy, but I thought it was a little harder to just ignore a draft notice than a jury duty notice. I’ve definitely tossed a few of the notices away.
"Battle of the Bulge" premiered in December of 1965. Two months earlier, in October of 1965, Warren Spahn appeared in his last Major League Baseball game for the SF Giants. Warren Spahn fought in the Battle of the Bulge.
Battle of the Bulge in Cinerama where I saw it at the Boyd Movie Theater in Philadelphia. Had my parents take me to every movie in Cinerama. The wide screen 70MM was awesome. You felt like you were in the movie.
I think it's so cool to watch these time capsule videos and see what life was like back then . Especially when you visited this city not to long ago and you see the difference. Mind boggling but interesting.
I was three years old. Worked in Midtown Manhattan from 1981 to 1985. I was 17 years old. It was fascinating. Porn theaters. Video arcades. I loved every day of it.
@@jcbrooklyn4800 A friend and I went to the city to do picket duty for Nynex. We wound up, ditching the signs and went to the porn booths instead! It was the oddest thing seeing the guy with the mob come into the booth once somebody came out
Minimum Wage was $1.40/hr and the subway fare in NYC 20 cents. and the Top TV shows were Bonanza, Lucy show, Andy Griffith Show, Gomer Pyle, and Batman
I was celebrating my fifth birthday on the day this was filmed. I grew up in Brooklyn, New York. But I have some memories of Manhattan during the 1960's.
@1:48- LOL - One juvenile digging in the crack of his pants and the other in the Beatles boots flipping off the camera man. Welcome to NYC 1966 style. Little did they know at the time, their antics are immortalized worldwide almost 60 years later.
Have you seen the pics of the college students on top of the roof at Geo. Wash. Univ. sunbathing in the 1930s and they are giving the finger to the cameraman?
I was almost exactly a year away from being born. I still watch the old Batman TV series reruns and these are the kinda shots of "Gotham City" you'd see during the opening.
It amazes me how the New York (notably, Manhattan) of the sixties seemed so much more authentic and livable (economically) than today. As an aside, to those noting that “everyone in this video is long dead, etc.,” please realize that this was 1966. Many of the young folks seen in this video are Baby Boomers and Silent Generation-era people. Many are very much alive in 2024.
I am. I worked there summer of 1967 and went there for fun regularly from suburbia. Much more interesting than the burbs. You had to be careful and "smart" but it was worth it. Never mugged my whole life. FOX puts it down for political reasons. They have their headquarters there and the Murdochs love it.
More livable? I doubt it. Back then new yorkers subsisted on processed junk like crisco, pop tarts, TV dinners, skimilk, margarine etc. Kudos to Millenials bringing back REAL foods 👏!!!
April, 8, 1966, was on a Friday, and my 18th birthday. I worked for the Olga Corporation where my fellow coworkers had a small birthday party for me. The following week I registered for the draft. By December 1967, I was on my way to the Republic of Vietnam with the second and third brigades of the 101st Airborne Division.
@@michaelcunninghamherrera7923 Thank you for your service! That was a horrific time and place to be from all I've read and heard, especially for someone just out of boot camp. Glad you returned.
I was 5 years old. Dad worked as a stockbroker on Wall Street. He commuted from Morristown NJ. We would often “go into the city” on Christmas to see the Rocketts.
1:27 The Horn and Hardart Automat, Yay! 2:28 The Allied Chemical building, my father worked for Allied. I was 15 in April of '66 and I while it wasn't in Manhattan, I went to the Murray the K's Easter Show at the Brooklyn Fox. It featured, Joe Tex, the Young Rascals, Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels, Jay & the Americans, Little Anthony & the Imperials, Deon Jackson, the Shangri-Las, Patti LaBelle & the Bluebells, the Gentrys, the Royalettes. Was it better back then, it was to me! I'm 74, have a pretty good life and I'm in good health but I'd give up any years that I have left to go back and relive the 1960's!
The Flintstones were ending. 1961-66. Dark Shadows, Star Trek, Green Hornet were just beginning. As were many classic Saturday morning cartoons. Beatles, Byrds, Beach Boys, Rolling Stones and American muscle cars were in their prime.😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢❤❤❤❤❤.
It looked more modern than expected, especially with the dynamic electronic signs. The cars gave it away but some of the architecture looked later. Looked like a fascinating place to explore.
@@freespirit21newyork BULL. They were made of steel, and since they weren't hot-dip Galvanized, they were rust buckets. They also didn't have three-point seatbelts, airbags, or modern crumple zones. Crash Deaths/year topped out at over 50,000, at some point in the 1960s/1970s. These days, it's down to about 30,000, and that's counting motorcycle, bicycle, and pedestrian Deaths, in a Nation with at least one third more population.
@@drpoundsign yeah but these small cars are just totaled with 1 hit . They crumble, they cannot withstand, made cheap, seatbelts are death traps IMO The airbags are way better, too bad they didn't have them back in the 60s & 70s My Dad had a 225 Buick Electra and let me say I experienced it, I loved it. I was in a accident in it. And the damage was like a black & blue mark very minimal I respect your opinion and what you believe, but I believe differently and experienced differently.
Oh I thought I had gotten in to at least one comment section where some excruciatingly boring imbecile didn't mention " look, no cell phones.". Like is it the same loser in every video of s live band from prior to 2000 whatever saying "look, no on holding up a phone." Doesn't it hurt people that they are this BORING and predictable?
Hell hole....today? Back in those good 'ol days it was a cesspool of porn, crime, and prostitution. Not that I'm too crazy of the Disneyland that it has now become, but get real.
This is a bizarre comment. The people who (I guess) believe that New York is worse than this either have never visited or never lived in the city. This reads like someone who watches a lot of Fox “News” and believes all the incoherent nonsense that Trump spews. The funny thing is Fox “News” is headquartered in Manhattan and if I’m not mistaken it is the maybe second most visited place in the U.S. after probably Disney in Orlando. Didn’t realize so many people desire to visit a “garish hell hole”.
According to Wikipedia, on the day this video was shot i.e 8th April 1966, Leonid Brezhnev was elected unanimously as the party leader of communist party of Soviet Union. Time magazine released one of its most controversial cover "Is god dead?" and Two boys, aged 13 and 12, who ran away from their homes in North Carolina, sneaked on to a railroad box car and then found themselves locked inside for the next 13 days. The sealed car was carrying a cargo of nearly empty beer bottles to the Schlitz Brewing Company in Wisconsin, and for nearly two weeks, they survived by drinking small amounts of stale beer, until April 21, when they arrived in Milwaukee and workmen at the brewing company heard their cries for help
LOL at the beer-story! Thanks for sharing...I too usually heat to Wikipedia when I see a dated-vid like this to see what was going on that day. Now off to research those poor beer-swillers.
@@kevinmadden1645 Not really. Lots of prostitutes keeping those seedy hotels in business. And drugs. And porn theaters. If you think life was better then, you probably weren't there.
@@kevinmadden1645 Actually it wasn't. The crime rate in NYC has dropped every year in the last 25 years except for a blip during the pandemic when people lost their jobs. Did you see "Taxi Driver"? That was the 70's. Not as safe as today.
@@hewitc The Crime Crackdown in the Nineties worked...but at Great Human Cost. Decriminalizing Narcotics would have been Better. The Economy, However, also improved during the Clinton Era. Computers and the Internet created a Lot of new jobs.
In 1971 or 72 my parents took us to NYC! Talk about culture shock coming from a small town in CT. I remember eating at that Howard Johnsons when we were there, We went to Ellis island that day too. I prefer that NYC to todays NYC. I wont ever go visit there in this lifetime again Too Crazy Now!
This is 6 months before I was born, in East Harlem... Times Square was looking pretty good and as you can see, a hit with the youngsters playing hooky... Unless it was Easter recess...😆
The thing I notice here and in other films and photos of big cities at that time is the taxis. The stereotype is of the old Checker cabs, but you see almost none of them. Most of the cabs seem to be Chevies, Fords, and Plymouths.
Yes, it's Times Square, but not ONE Broadway show is in evidence! (The "My Fair Lady" seen here is the film version.) While it's true most Broadway theaters are on the side streets next to Times Square, you would think you'd see a billboard for a show or at least SOMEthing. Interesting from this film to see Times Square without the TKTS booth; it didn't come in to play until 1973.
But all the Broadway theaters are there on the cross streets and all look like they did back then. Broadway preservation has kept them looking identical from the time they were built. Even the signs look like they haven't changed. Shows that opened in 1966. Mame, Annie Get Your Gun, Sweet Charity, Showboat just to name a few. They were all huge shows.
There was an arcade around there, I think it was next to a place called The Majestic Dance Hall. It is often confused with he arcade one 42nd, but the one I am remembering was on 45th or 46th.
I was an 8-year-old third grader here in suburban Philadelphia back in April of '66. Although I don't remember if it was either the next week or the week after, I had to stay home from school because I had an earache. And I remember my mother giving me a bottle of water to put on it as well.
Pretty sure people are working really really hard in Manhattan right now.😂 How did you even get this preposterous idea? Rent was hella more controlled AND affordable in Manhattan in the 50s and 60s. It's quite the opposite now... in the extreme. Everyone is hustling in Manhattan including the tourists. Everyone's hustling to get the most out of their money these days. No one is 'ppl dont work today', trust me. Great video btw. Nice to see a window back in time to my former stomping grounds. Love those two kids just chillin' and then flipping off the camera.
*Beautiful wide-open avenues. No stupid planters or annoying concrete barriers blocking lanes or ridiculous bike lanes causing manufactured artificial congestion.*
😂 you’re very observant! I’ve never been to New York (didn’t want to) but you should see the Small towns from this era. Beautiful old homes large oak trees not too much traffic. I guess all that’s gone forever.😢✌️
I don’t get it. People in the comments talk about how great it was back then, but when you look at reports, most people hated it. It was dangerous and violent and mafia ran a lot of stuff. Sounds pretty desperate to me.
mixed comments as usual if Giuliani was around in the 70's n 80's ..he would of shut shyt down ..all the bums that brag today how they got away with shit wouldn't say shit
The Past is always Romanticized... 50 years from today, people will glorify our tranquility, our love of each other and especially our peaceful co-existence.
@@RobertodelaVega-t3w So true. I don’t know it’s annoying or just frustrating to read comments where “things were so great”. No they weren’t please stop lying to yourself.
4:09 Some Captain of Industry in a 1966 navy blue Cadillac limo! Classic. Also love the movie marquees of Paul Newman and Dean Martin. Nice technique to pan across both.
Trivia - Times Square was formerly known as the British term “Longacre” until The NY Times moved their HQ here in 1904 - and advertising popped up all over the area.
Born 2 years later. 1966 was a seminal year. Great music. Chicago nurses and University of Texas. GOP rebound in November. This was all before that. What a moment.
@@jamesmack3314 The Obstetrics services of NYC Hospitals were completely Overwhelmed-Nine months later! The 1977 blackout, in contrast; spawned looting and riots. Future rappers got their boomboxes and turntables via the "five finger discount." They were making WAR-not LOVE-by then.
All those people are long dead. The cars are junked and the buildings have all crumbled slowly to the ground. Not a trace of '66 remains, just a fog of moldy memories.
I remember my first time in Times Square I was 14 , me and a bunch of other kids cut school and took train to Times Square and it look a lot like the taxi driver movie 🍿 every bit , we play video games and pinball machines , great time and never got in trouble 👿, what they don’t know won’t hurt them 😮😢
1:22 I read a book about this restaurant, called an automat. They kept food behind glass panels and you put a nickel in to open it. The food was supposed to have been tasty. They were famous for their pies and coffee. The drinks came out of spouts in the shape of dolphins. In the 1930s you could get a glass of water& ketchup for free, called a “depression cocktail”& people would do that and sit in there all day. This Times Square location opened in 1912 in a brand new 3 story building. H&H bought the place outright in 1916. When the restaurant was over in 1977, the company leased the building to Burger King.
