AA-2026-15F08F
On the image
Someone climbed high enough in 1950s New York to capture the moment when the city was remaking itself in concrete curves — a sweeping elevated highway interchange dominates the foreground, the kind of infrastructure Robert Moses was still insisting was the future while the neighborhoods it bulldozed through had a different opinion. The skyline beyond is unmistakably lower Manhattan, recognisable landmarks rising out of the blue haze of a city that still ran on coal and did not consider this a problem. The whole scene has the confidence of an era that believed more lanes solved everything, an assumption the city would spend the next half-century slowly, expensively reversing. What the camera caught without meaning to was the high-water mark of the American freeway consensus, frozen in a shade of optimistic blue.
Visually related — by likeness
Lower Manhattan Skyline and Highway Interchange, New York City, 1950s. 1950–1959. Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library, AA-2026-15F08F. https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/lower-manhattan-skyline-and-highway-interchange-new-york-city-1950s.
@misc{aaAA202615F08F,
title = {Lower Manhattan Skyline and Highway Interchange, New York City, 1950s},
year = {1950–1959},
howpublished = {Archive \& Atlas, Historical Image Library},
note = {Accession AA-2026-15F08F},
url = {https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/lower-manhattan-skyline-and-highway-interchange-new-york-city-1950s}
}TY - ART TI - Lower Manhattan Skyline and Highway Interchange, New York City, 1950s PY - 1950–1959 PB - Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library AN - AA-2026-15F08F UR - https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/lower-manhattan-skyline-and-highway-interchange-new-york-city-1950s ER -
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