This 16mm film was shot in New York City in 1972, and features people and vehicles navigating their way through the sidewalks and streets of Manhattan.
This kind of footage was boring and meaningless at the time it was shot. But then it becomes special about 20 years later. When it's 50 years later, it's downright magical.
In 1972 I was in high school, just starting to date. Going to movies, house parties, thinking about college. Still going fishing with my parents and grandparents enjoying big extended family cookouts or road trips. Looking forward to the new fall tv shows that came out in September and new albums and going to concerts. Riding in the back of my granddaddy's old pickup truck to go to the market for vegetables. I loved buying shoes and 45 records when I couldn't afford the album and making jewelry out of telephone wire or cinnamon sticks to sell at school. Riding the bus and the bus driver stopping on the way home for us to go in the country store, which he was not supposed to but did. I miss the 70s.
Cool footage! I was 31 in 1972 and I worked as a mechanic at a gas station on the upper east side of Manhattan. I got of New York in 1975, it was really deteriorating then.
1972, I was 16. I’d go into the city then, and loved to watch the crowds, especially the women. Many things have improved since then, but a lot has been lost.
How cool. Did you accidentally spot him or were you told he was in this? He looks like he was quite the business man, unlike my hippie parents who were probably unwashed, barefooted and stoned around the time this film was made.
It's sad to think most of the people I see walking the streets in this video have now passed away..I love watching these videos from the past and wish I could have experienced that era.
It's 51 years ago. Someone in their mid 30's would be in their 80's now. I have an aunt and grandmother in their mid 90's. I'm sure there are people in this video still alive.
I was 18 that year, and working downtown in Boston during the summer. That was the era of the sideburns. We had rules in school as to how low they could go. There were still other dress rules but they were starting to loosen up on them. By 1980, I was working in NYC.
oh man what a time and era. I was 15 in Rhode Island. Took a train down to NYC with a friend whose Dad was a train conductor. No charge. It was the first time I was in a big city. I could not believe the crowds, the 200 people in lines for the McDonalds.
I was just two then, my family had recently moved from Brooklyn to Staten Island, so of course I have no personal memories of Manhattan in '72; but this would have been the Manhattan my father and grandfather still worked in at that time (my father's law office was in Court Street area/Downtown Brooklyn but he still often was in the city). It would be 13 years later, 1985, that I first went to Manhattan by myself, hopping on the ferry from SI after school. Was quite different by then, but it's obviously so much more different now.
Oh man, the simple times. 70, and 80 was better times, people worked. No Instagram, no tik tok, none of that crap. People had better morals, people cared about people, kids had more respect. Great video
20 bucks could carry me through the weekend in town. Cheap eats, dance hall 3 at door includes 2 drinks, all night fun. 1.50 full breakfast next am, 15 cents subway
I disagree . Back then business persons and tourists were well dressed. Just look at the video. I visit New York City a lot and can tell you that you these days you can not tell the difference between tourists, pedestrians and the homeless.
Did anyone else notice the jogger at 0:15 coming from the left side perfectly fitting the onbeat and then crossing the street like Rocky in his gray hoodie? Love this little detail.
I'd give anything to go back to 1972... My whole life was still ahead of me. Now I'm 61 and getting older by the second. Death is around the corner. Here Today, Gone Tomorrow.
I'm right behind you. I'm 59 and in 1972, I was an 8 year old kid. I'm looking at this and watching my childhood flash before my eyes. I remember the bus stop signs looking like that. And I remember the buses looking like that as well. The buses used to have the advertising on the outside of the bus. The back bumpers were big enough where you can stand on the back of them and hitch the back of the bus for a ride. Lol.
@Winner Takes Awll Mental illness was there it just was not as common as now. Also if you had serious issues you would live in an institution. Today they live on the streets.
People those days made an effort to dress better and formally. So casuals were for the weekend or when not at work. Today anyone can wear a hooded top, jeans, t shirt, sneakers(trainers), and just look they went out to buy milk.
What i find fascinating about historical videos is how every single little thing is different to what we have now, even the signs were made differently, looked different, different styles etc. There's also a strange sadness in realising how boxed in we are by time, we get our shot no matter how good or bad and that's it, that was our small piece of life, how can it be that so many thoughts, so many lives and stories, are gone in the same way as the wind or rain, this life makes no sense to me.
It's true that this life is a vapor that's here today and gone tomorrow, and sin is what brought death into the world in the first place. But God who created us and set the desire for eternity in our hearts offers us eternal life if we're willing to turn our hearts away from sin, and believe, trust in, and follow Jesus with all of our hearts. Jesus is the person of God whose mission was to come into the world as a human being, live a perfectly sinless life on behalf of the human race, die a horrible death on behalf of the human race, then rise from the dead on behalf of the human race. Jesus took upon Himself our punishment for our sin, to satisfy the holy requirement of God's justice against us. God loves us and created us to enjoy relationship with Him, but Adam's disobedience caused us to inherit a sinful disposition. God is so incomprehensibly holy, that all sin separates us from God, and condemns the human race (those with understanding) to mandatory eternal separation from Him in Hell. Jesus came to be our rescuer. We became sinners through Adam's disobedience; now we can be made righteous through Jesus's sinless life, and conquer death through His resurrection. No human being can live a good enough life to merit Heaven. That's why Jesus Himself had to die in our place. Those who follow and believe in Jesus will continue to live after the body dies, and there will be a restored earth in which we will have new bodies (such as the one in which Jesus Christ was resurrected), and in which God will also dwell among us. There will no longer be death, or sickness, or sadness, or calamity. Those were the product of sin on the former earth. We will live forever in the joy of the presence of the Lord. However, those who choose not to believe for whatever reason (God's word tells us those will be the majority) will be eternally condemned because of their sin. God counts faith in Jesus as righteousness. This is the biblical gospel, in which God offers everyone salvation, forgiveness of sin, relationship with God as His child, and eternal life. It brings Him no pleasure for anyone to face His fierce justice. Jesus coming to earth is God wanting to save us from that. Hopefully this helps to put life in proper perspective.
@@clayjo791 time is weird btw lol,made this comment just now but it will be old in years to come lol so frickin fascinating I tell you how we are All governed by time!!!
I just see the similarities. Traffic and people shopping or hurrying somewhere, it's all the same. The true things are timeless, only the superficial things change.
I had a friend on West 9th at the time who became a high-level official in the US Justice Department. Strange how those things work out. It will never happen again, and with the cost of rentals in the Village, a person needs a trust fund to live there today. I had a great apartment on Charles Street. Afternoons and evenings in Sutters Cafe and Cafe Borgia.@@claudiahansen4938
@Z Better things to do? Ha! You make it seem like they were making a conscious choice not to use cellphones. If you're so self-righteous, don't you have "better things to do" then to use RU-vid, cellphones or any of the other horrible, no-good technologies?
I just finished watching a video of new york from 2019 and let me tell you...NOT EVERYONE WAS ON THEIR GODDAMN CELLPHONE 📱 and the ones who did have their cellphones were either taking pictures cause they were touring or just answering a text from a friend or relative yes we all have cellphones but not everyone is constantly using them
This is deep for me to watch. I was only 9 at the time in Crown Heights Brooklyn we moved to Philly not long after this was filmed in ''73 I still have a lot of childhood memories of N.Y.C.!
There is no obligation to buy iPhone then look at it all day instead of saying hello, looking where you are going and not stepping into dog crap or infront of a car. We can recreate those blissful times when we knew what our eyes and ears were for!!
I was four when this footage was taken. I still have the family’s 1972 Ford Ranchero Squire that my father bought new at the time. He will be 80 this year. When I drive it now, I’m always nervous and treat it with kid gloves. Hard to believe it would be just another car swerving around potholes and zipping in out of lanes at this time.
I was 13 in "72" & went to catholic school in Jersey City. I've wondered also why we had attache cases or briefcases as book bags. They were grooming us to work in business instead of the trades 😁
And to think , at 61 years old , I went to New York City for the very first time in my life in April 2023( I live in Memphis ). I only got to see parts of Manhattan and Queens, but plan to come back again and again, because I love it! They say once your feet walk the streets of New York, even for a moment, you are never the same, I believe that is so true!
It was an exciting time to be in New York. All the night clubs, the Yankees and all the stores and plenty of jobs that are now all gone because of the internet.
as for the Yankees this was still a year away from George buying the team which was still owned by CBS at the time. they were not terrible but far from the best team. I used to love going to games during those years because there were not a lot of fans there and you could buy a cheap upper deck ticket and work ur way down by the 6th or 7th inning by giving the ushers a couple of bucks. great memories, so glad I got to be at the REAL Yankee Stadium.
1972. That was the year I left NY, but I remember what it was like. For one thing people were different and had a different take of what life was all about. There was a purpose in life and an urgency to get to it. We knew what we were, we had goals, ambitions and a chance to prove ourselves was all we needed. We had friends, real friends, people whom we trusted with our life. Whatever happened to that. Don’t know. Today my concern is to make sure I charge my phone at night.
One of the things that comes to mind is that technological progress has not engendered more complex, beautiful people to put it simply I guess. "We had friends, real friends, people whom wee trusted with our life", and now we don't, it's gone. So our humanness appears to have been eviscerated throughout these 5 decades, and we have become less complex as people. Life around paradoxically has become more complex due in part to the technological progress, but human relationships have become more shallow, and human existence (everyday life, the discourse, culture, music) has become vulgarized and in a way smaller than what it was in the spring of 1972. So today we are only concerned about charging the phone at night in order to be able to flip through the phone tomorrow which is unhealthy.
The following year 1973 NYC would see an aggressive citywide changeover of the old Mercury Vapor luminares to new High Pressure Sodium Vapor luminares, signaling IMO the true beginning of the 70's. Now we have ineffective LED Luminaries.
Couldn't find myself in this film...I was working at Trans World Airlines reservations at 2 Penn plaza ...next to the new Madison Square Garden. Lived on 8th Ave in Chelsea. I want a REAL time machine !!!
I was born in 1972, and I think about how wonderful it would be if today, at the age of 72, somebody would notice him- or herself on the video, at the age of 20!!
Wow, a different world. Summer of '72 was my first time in NYC and though it's true that the city's infrastructure was in a bad way in many places I absolutely loved it. A time before a lot of midtown's older buildings were torn down for yet another bland glass and steel banality and when many of the people in the streets didn't resemble third world drop outs. NYC today? You're welcome to it.
So true. It is a very good and funny way to put it - 'third world drop outs'. I constantly bump into them on the streets of New York and even used to live next to them. And people in this video are lovelier and nicer. And the blind man at the end looks sweet. I wish, Paul, there was any way for me to time-travel to the Summer of '72, just for a couple weeks. I would probably spend my time in the Village...
In that time before I graduated from high school, I had long hair, sideburns, and a mustache. And the average male had a lot of hair and were sturdy. Today, overweight, sensitive, premature baldness like Little Brian Stelter of CNN News!
@@Ben-ek1fz Thank you! I read the same reports and was astounded that a country that had such a long history of higher education has so many stupid adults like we do. In the end anybody can say .....Oh! That is cool ! But it is being right that counts not being looking cool for what us New Yorkers as I am a Bowery Bum.
What a difference in the way people dressed back then! People took pride in their appearance. Wish it was like that today. I didn’t know even 1 person in that whole video! 😂
0:24, the transition, when the MTA changed the color of their buses from green to blue. Up till then, my whole life, NYC buses were green. 2:29, ahh, the Pan Am Building. A few years later (1978) I would get my first real job and would be working out of the 52nd Floor of the Pan Am Building.
Look !!!! they are walking… taking in life without a phone in hand….Manufactures Hannover baby ….look at those boats with wheels……remember it all …7 years old growing up on Bleecker and Bank street…..all those souls…time…time….
I was NYC in the mid 90’s and later. Went to all 5 boroughs and was told they weren’t safe in the 80’s. Its gone downhill now. But thats when the families and ESPN and other businesses came to Time Square! The good old days! Stop & Frisk made us safe!😉😉😉😉😉😉😉😉
It was safe anywhere for most NYers who knew how to act. I rode the subways at night in the Bronx in the 80s and never got so much as a funny look. Also all the old people sat next to me. I guess I looked like a plain cloth cop.
Wow. This was street photographer Garry Winogrand's New York. He captured the quirky, the curious and the zeitgeist of this epoch. Look up his work, you're in for a treat.😊
