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Monday, March 12, 2012

History Surface Tension: New York City 1968

Posted by Charles Mudede on Mon, Mar 12, 2012 at 8:33 AM

This film of a 90-minute walk—it's composed of 160 snapshots—was made by Hollis Frampton...

Nothing beats a walk in a big city.

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I was looking at population stats for Manhattan. It actually reached its peak in 1900 at over 3 million, and then went into a long decline up until 1980 when it hit half of that.

So, for the people who lived there in the 1960s and 1970s, it was an Empty City...relative to the amount of left over stuff from its heyday.

Posted by Supreme Ruler Of The Universe

on March 12, 2012 at 9:12 AM

there are some walks in the cascades that can give a big city walk a run for its money.

Posted by Max Solomon on March 12, 2012 at 9:42 AM

I lived there a couple years later, and yes, Sundays (and August) you could have the city pretty much to yourself (except Central Park, and other gathering spots.)

I thought Manhattan was very livable then, and affordable, even if you had little money!

Our first apartment just off 5th ave and 94th st, was $200 a month, with a bathtub in the kitchen.

Notice all the women in dresses!

Posted by judybrowni on March 12, 2012 at 9:52 AM

The amount of litter in Central Park is stunning. "Keep America Beautiful," "Every Litter Bit Hurts," Iron Eyes Cody, Lady Bird Johnson's highway-beautification project [seems oxymoronic to us now], etc. all had positive and lasting effects.

Posted by rob!

on March 12, 2012 at 10:09 AM

It would be a wonderful comparrison for somebody to try and reproduce the walk shot for shot today.

Posted by RedEye on March 12, 2012 at 1:09 PM

@5, indeed...

Posted by Charles Mudede on March 12, 2012 at 2:54 PM

The snippet consists, Frampton wrote, of “a single dolly shot from the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge to the lake in Central Park."

No snapshots here. (And even if it were strung-together snapshots, it would be thousands of them.)

Posted by d.p. on March 12, 2012 at 3:08 PM