26 Vintages Photos That Show How New York Has Transformed Since The 1970s

Pamela Engel
Vintage NYCEdmund V. Gillon/Museum of the City of New YorkTimes Square in the late 1970s

The Museum of the City of New York has published a collection of photos from Edmund V. Gillon that capture street scenes in New York in the 1970s and 1980s.

Gillon has published more than a dozen books on New York City, the museum notes.

Some of the city’s landscape looks the same today as it did back then, but some areas look drastically different.

Today’s downtown skyline is missing the Twin Towers, and Times Square has transformed dramatically since the ’70s with the addition of many more lit-up billboards and signs.

We’ve published a selection of Gillon’s photos with permission from the museum.

Times Square didn't used to look nearly as intense as it does today.

And Broadway near 7th Avenue and West 43rd Street was also a lot calmer.

People paused to take photos and sit on benches at busy Rockefeller Center.

The corner near Radio City Music Hall was busy with activity.

Retail stores are more prominent now in Union Square.

The area of 14th Street near Irving Place looks very different now from what is pictured here.

Bars and restaurants were more common along 14th Street than the retail stores you would find today.

The Union Square greenmarket is still going strong.

People hung out in nearby Washington Square Park.

14th Street near the PATH station to New Jersey was busy with people patronizing shops and food spots.

Some parts of downtown looked different back then too.

These women strolled down Essex Street in 1975.

Pell Street in Chinatown was bustling.

The New York Stock Exchange still looks the same.

This shot shows a corner of Fulton and Water Streets in 1975.

Sweet's Restaurant on Fulton Street was a popular spot, but it closed in 1992 after a bad storm.

This West Village street looks peaceful and scenic.

Children played in the street with water from a fire hydrant.

People visited Battery Park to gaze at the Statue of Liberty.

The lower Manhattan skyline is a lot more built up now than it was in this 1979 photo.

The Twin Towers used to dominate the skyline.

The observation deck of the World Trade Center's South Tower was a popular spot.

In Brooklyn, Broadway near Bedford Avenue and South 6th Street didn't look that different before Williamsburg was gentrified.

But this section of Broadway between Berry Street and Bedford Avenue looked rundown pre-gentrification.

The traffic around busy Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn is calm in this shot.

The Empire State Building looked just as majestic as it does today.

Now step back even farther in time.

45 Vintage Photos Of Manhattan From The 1940s >

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