Manhattan Skyline from New Jersey Shore, 1950s

Archive & AtlasEstablished · MMXXIII

Manhattan Skyline from New Jersey Shore, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

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Manhattan Skyline from New Jersey Shore, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

Unattributed 1950–1959

AA-2026-189B57

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Someone stood on a rooftop or elevated platform across the Hudson in the 1950s and pointed a camera at the most photographed skyline in the world, which at that moment still showed the Empire State Building presiding over midtown with no serious competition — the twin towers were a decade away from being even a bad idea. The view across the river captures Manhattan as it looked during the brief period when Americans had decided that cities were the future, before they also decided they were the past. The foreground wall and a stray pole got into the composition in the way that amateur photographers of the era accepted as the cost of ambition, the assumption being that the subject was majestic enough to absorb any obstacle placed in front of it. The haze softens the silhouette just enough that every tower becomes a generalised symbol of modernity rather than a specific address, which is probably how the person taking this felt about New York anyway — close enough to visit, far enough to admire. The skyline obliged by looking exactly like a skyline should, and the pole did not.

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