This Is What New York Looked Like in 1911
Real, unstaged footage of New York City in 1911 — the Statue of Liberty, the Flatiron, elevated trains and crowded streets, three years before the First World War.
The Setup
This is New York in 1911, filmed by a Swedish crew who were sent around the world with a movie camera. The Statue of Liberty, the Flatiron Building, elevated trains clattering over the Bowery, streets where horse-carts still jostle with early motorcars. Three years before the First World War, ordinary people are just going about an ordinary day.
What stays with you is how little people have really changed. Watch for the young girl being chauffeured along Broadway in an open-top limousine, radiating pure, bottomless boredom — the exact look you’d catch in any back seat today.
