New York City’s transformation into one of the world’s greatest cities coincided with the advent of photography, meaning that many of its most iconic moments have been captured for posterity.
Click through the gallery to see the earliest images of the city, from the end of the Civil War, right through to Prohibition and the Roaring Twenties...
The earliest photograph of New York City was taken in 1839, the year photography was invented. It was a daguerreotype of the new Unitarian Church, made by Samuel F.B. Morse, but has since been lost. It was the Civil War, however, that hastened the process' use and acceptance. Photographers were hired to document the conflict and the people who fought in it – like this group of Union Soldiers, members of Company G of the 71st New York volunteers.
One of the first great State events captured on film – or a sheet of copper, coated with silver, to be more accurate – was the funeral of President Abraham Lincoln. The funeral procession saw his body lay in state in 14 cities, including New York. Here we see mourners line the street as President Lincoln's funeral procession passes through New York City on 25 April 1865, before being taken by train to his final resting place in Springfield, Illinois.
Coney Island sits on a peninsula in southwest Brooklyn and has always offered an escape in some form or other for the people of New York City. In 1865, these ladies and gentlemen came to the promenade on the beach to breathe in the sea air. Barely five years later, a new rail line would transform the area, bringing hotels, restaurants, amusement rides – and a lot more people.
The Ninth Avenue El was opened in 1868 and was the first elevated railway in New York City. Back then, it was known as the West Side and Yonkers Patent Railway and ran from Battery Place, northward up Greenwich Street and onto Cortlandt Street. This photo captures Charles T. Harvey, the general manager of the West Side and Yonkers Patent Railway Company, testing the line in a single-man car in 1867.
Opened on 24 May 1883, Brooklyn Bridge was the first fixed crossing of the East River and the longest suspension bridge in the world at the time. It was regarded as a marvel of 19th century engineering and took 14 years to build. This photo was taken in 1877, just over halfway through the project. Two workers stand on a high catwalk, surveying the construction with Manhattan in the background, the roadway of the bridge not yet complete.
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The next major engineering project in New York was the assembly and erection of the Statue of Liberty, a gift from the people of France. The statue was built in sections in a Parisian warehouse and shipped to New York. Work on a suitably immense pedestal for the statue to stand on was started in 1884 on Bedloe’s Island. But when the statue arrived in June 1885, the pedestal was not complete. Here we see Liberty’s giant feet waiting for it to be finished.
Fast-forward to 28 October 1886 and the statue is finally completed and unveiled to much fanfare. Excited crowds gathered both onshore and in boats on the harbour to celebrate the monument's dedication. This photo of the big day captures the chaos and excitement, with smoke from a canon salute partially obscuring Lady Liberty.
Many New Yorkers would have celebrated Liberty with a shot of whiskey. Possibly at Steve Brodie’s Bar and Tavern, a popular watering hole on the Bowery, seen here a year later in 1887.
After a relatively mild winter, a ferocious snowstorm hit New York on 11 March 1888. Known as the 'Great White Hurricane,' it blanketed New York City with 22 inches (5.5m) of snow, with 80 miles per hour (130km/h) winds creating snow drifts as high as 50 feet (15m). Workers were trapped in offices, on the streets and in public transport and such was the damage to the city’s infrastructure that officials decided to put power and telegraph lines, as well as public transport, underground.
New York’s bitter winters had an upside. Each year the lakes in the newly created Central Park were drained to a certain level so that they froze, providing an exhilarating outdoor rink for ice skaters. Here we see skaters in front of the iconic Dakota Apartments, built in a German Renaissance style and opened in 1884. It's the oldest remaining luxury apartment building in the city and it still stands today.
On 1 January 1892 an imposing new centre was opened on Ellis Island to process immigrants coming into the US. Annie Moore, a teenage girl from Ireland, was the very first immigrant to be processed at Ellis Island. Over the next 62 years, more than 12 million immigrants passed through on their way to a new life in the USA.
The prospect of employment in a rapidly expanding industrial economy brought millions of immigrants from Europe, Asia and Latin America to New York in search of a better life. But the streets were not always lined with gold. Most immigrants often lived in cramped tenement housing that lacked basic amenities like running water and toilets. Here we see a Jewish immigrant living in a New York cellar, preparing to eat a meal on the Sabbath.
That’s not to say that some immigrants didn’t thrive. Serbian-American inventor and engineer Nikola Tesla emigrated to the States in 1884 and met with immediate success. Here we see him (blurred, in the centre) passing an electric current through writer Mark Twain and actor Joseph Jefferson to illuminate a lamp. The photograph was taken at Tesla's laboratory on South Fifth Avenue in 1894.
For most immigrants in New York, however, life was simply a case of working hard and getting by. Many started their own street-level enterprises achieving varying levels of success. Like these pushcart peddlers on Mulberry Street, waiting for trade as they chase the American dream.
By the turn of the century, New York was an economic juggernaut. Its port was the busiest in the world and it was one of the wealthiest cities on the planet too. With that wealth came more leisure time, not just for the well-off but also for workers. Even the rarefied sport of polo was democratised, with ‘mechanised polo’ becoming a popular sport on Coney Island. The rules were the same, except cars carried the mallet-wielding competitors instead of horses.
1n 1901, Theodore Roosevelt became the 26th president of the United States and the youngest president in the nation’s history. He was also the first president born in New York City, having grown up in a townhouse on East 20th Street. It is said he brought 'new excitement and power' to the office, evident here in this photograph of him speaking in his typical oratorical pose in New York in the year he became president.
While the Tower Building is regarded as New York’s first skyscraper, the Flatiron Building, completed in 1902, was hailed as the city’s first ‘artistic’ one. Its unusual wedge-shape was compared to the "bow of a monster ocean-liner" sailing up Broadway by American photographer Alfred Stieglitz. An increase in urban commerce, limited land and technical innovations like steel frames and elevators would make Downtown and Midtown become a literal forest of tall buildings.
As New York City grew and its narrow streets struggled to cope with the traffic that comes with being a powerhouse of commerce, plans were approved in 1894 to build a subway system. Barely 10 years later it was completed and on 27 October 1904, the first riders on New York City's subway set off. The passengers were a group of financiers and city officials seen here at City Hall station.
On 15 June 1904, General Slocum, a sidewheel passenger steamboat, caught fire and sank in the East River. It is estimated 1,021 souls perished that day, the largest death toll in American history until the 9/11 attack. The event devastated the German-American community of the Lower East Side. The local Lutheran Church had hired the vessel for a day of family fun, with most of the passengers being women and children.
Even during the darkest times, one place continued to bring light and joy to the city. By 1905, Coney Island had transformed from a relatively tranquil seaside resort to a bustling amusement park with bright lights, carnival rides and thrilling circus and daredevil acts attracting visitors from all parts of NYC. The heart of that transformation was Luna Park, seen here at night, illuminated and beguiling.
Change had come to Greenwich Village too. By the early 1900s, the district had become something of an artist’s haven and the bohemian capital of the city. It was here that you’d find writer Joe Gould, also known as Professor Seagull; dancer Isadora Duncan; and painter Charlotte Powell, who scandalised society with her short hair. This photo of her was taken by Jessie Tarbox Beals, the first female photo-journalist in the US and something of a bohemian legend herself.
In another photo taken by Jessie Tarbox Beals, we see people dancing and drinking at Charley Reed's Purple Pup in Greenwich Village. As well as being a haven for writers and artists, Greenwich Village was also home to some of the city’s wildest bars. It may look tame by today’s standards, but the ‘Drink Me’ and 'The Mad T-Party' signs suggest that these guys knew how to party.
On 25 March 1911, another terrible tragedy befell the city when a fire tore through Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, just east of Washington Square Park. The flames were fed by copious cotton and paper waste and spread quickly, killing 146 immigrant garment workers who were trapped on the upper floors of the Asch Building because the owners had chained the doors to prevent theft. Here we see firefighters, visibly shaken by the horrific scenes that confronted them.
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire triggered huge protests about working conditions in New York, bringing about a raft of new labour laws protecting workers in 1912. The same year saw suffragettes hold protests in New York City demanding the right to vote. These suffragettes in Greenwich village are holding a banner that reads 'We were voters out West, Why deny our rights in the East?' in reference to the fact that the women of Wyoming had been granted suffrage in 1869.
A giant step towards equality came in 1913 with the forming of the New York Female Giants baseball team. There were 32 players altogether, divided into a red and a blue team. Their captain, Ida Schnall, (pictured here wearing a white hat) later became a Hollywood actress.
Another extraordinary sporting event took place in New York on 3 May 1913 – the start of a bicycle race from New York to San Francisco, organised by the Century Road Club. Here we see cyclists Fred J. Scherer and Walter Wiley getting ready to set off from City Hall. Forty-seven days later they reached San Francisco.
In January 1919, the controversial Eighteenth Amendment was ratified. The Amendment prevented the manufacture, sale and transportation of alcoholic beverages in the United States and ushered in a period of Prohibition that lasted until 1933. New York enacted their own prohibition legislation. This photo was taken in a crowded New York bar just before midnight on 30 June 1919, moments before Prohibition came into effect.
Prohibition saw a rise in bootlegging and gangsterism, but that wasn’t the reason behind the shocking Wall Street Bombing on 16 September 1920. A cart loaded with explosives was detonated outside the US Assay Office, killing more than 30 people and injuring some 300. It was one of the earliest cases investigated by the FBI but it was never solved. One theory is that it was the work of a small group of Italian anarchists, which would make it one of the first acts of international terrorism committed on US soil.
Enforcing Prohibition was always going to be an uphill battle, but that didn’t stop the authorities from trying. Here we see New York City deputy police commissioner John A. Leach (right) watching agents pour liquor into a sewer following a raid during the height of Prohibition. Such raids, it has to be said, were largely performative.
The reality was that resourceful New Yorkers were still able to find ways to enjoy a drink. Speakeasies sprung up all over the city, offering first-class entertainment as well. Actress Texas Guinan (pictured) was regarded as the Queen of the Nightclubs and operated speakeasies across New York City. She was arrested several times but never convicted as her ownership of the clubs was never proved. A timeless reminder that New York City will always find a way.
Now discover more amazing photos of America, some over 160 years old