Wonderful film! I would have been 11 when this was made, I lived in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn and what we see in this film is how I remember things. No one will ever convince me that things weren't better back then!
@cats0182… there existed back then a magical charm that faded with every decade and rotted into rust.. we all marvel at technology but we lost something far more valuable in the process. Look at the current state of America today. Medical advancements to physically transform a man into a woman? The Frankenstein monster that came to life 60 yrs later. No thanks
Born in Brooklyn. Raised in Rockaway Beach. Now 83 years old and haven't been back to NYC in decades. Watched this video in absolute stunned silence. Nothing else for me to say.
@@GinaBrooklyn1-ux3px Greenpoint is stunning. The waterside is developed while the old streets maintain their epic charm. Downtown is super tall but VERY DANGEROUS now. Greetings from Morningside Heights ! NYC is a DUMP these days.
Born and raised in NYC. Grew up during the 70s. Son of Sam, blackout, Fort Apache, subway crime but it was utopia compared to today. The inmates are literally running the asylum.
Watching this made me very emotional. I’m a child of the 70s and 80s but watching this makes me miss something I feel I’ve lived before in another life. I’m sure it wasn’t always easy in those times but things were much simpler than this world we live in now. 😢
I hear you. I grew up in the same era as you and I miss my youth in The Bronx.😞💔 I never thought I'd say that, too, but nostalgia has hit me hard since approaching 60. I miss those times, even if they weren't perfect.😔❤️
I love these old style documentaries. Very relaxing to watch. New stuff today has way too many fast edits. People today got the tiktok brain. Every few seconds a jump cut.
1961 was about the year American Grafiitti took place- there was something magical yet ordinary about that year, random but before the great upheavals of assassinations, war, racial strife, etc...
I was 15 and in high school when this film was out. I attended Haaren High school, on 10th Avenue, between 58th & 59th street. I was born in Brooklyn, Kings County Hospital, in 1946. Lived in Bed- Sty until I was 8, then my mom moved to Ft. Greene Housing Projects. (R.V. Ingersoll Housing/ Walt Witman Housing) I loved growing up there, it was like a family village. You learned a lot about life and how to survive in the real world. I still harbor fond memories of my time, growing up and living there.
Having been born in 1946 and spending some years at the Ft. Green Houses, I take it that you probably rode the old Myrtle Avenue El a few times growing up during the 50's and 60's! I grew up in The Bronx during the 80's and 90's. I attended Adlai Stevenson H.S. My parents can remember taking the old Bronx 3rd Avenue El to Fordham Road with their respective parents for clothes shopping. Wish I could take a camera and time travel back to those days and shoot pictures of all those old neighborhoods.❤
A beautiful, innocent film with a jazz complexity portending the dissonance to come. I've lived here 60 years and will probably be here till I die. What a beautiful place - not compared to rurality, but for us who come from here, still home.
Was born this year and i know the City very well. NYer most of my life andy sad ahowed me all of old NYC. Glad i lived to see it because one day people will never believe it existed. But, i lived it AND I LOVED IT. Bye bye NYC it was so good to know you!!!
I was born same year 1961 at Columbia Presbyterian (where Malcolm was pronounced dead in 1965). Grew up Washington heights/Harlem. Now an average wage earner cannot afford to rent or much less buy a residence in these once blacklisted neighborhoods. Back when I was coming up they didn’t have anything north of 110th street on those tourist maps
I was 8 years old living in Queens when this film was produced so I feel a bit more connection than most however a large part of the film relates to a lifestyle that the vast majority of New Yorkers would never live be it Turtle Bay or even the owner of a deli. But there is gold here… the Russian immigrant from 1913 asked what makes a man happy. He responded… moments of not being hungry or sick. The first half of my seventy years were lived in NYC and its environs. I met a refugee from Vietnam in NYC in 1976. We married in 1977. We would end up living in Vietnam the second half of my life where we remain. Thankfully not hungry … not sick and therefore happy… with happy memories of NYC and a happy life here all thanks to lucky stars!
Lovely stuff. Speaks volumes that Katz Deli is frequented by working people in the film and is now just a tourist trap, with huge queues and $25 sandwiches.
So many working and middle class people living in Manhattan back then. They gave the city an authenticity and charm that it has definitely lost to the whim of billionaires that one by one tear down the old and build garish new skyscrapers, only to visit a few times a year. So sad.
You are right, and thank you for putting the thought into this issue to not blame the easy targets of immigrants, or trophies for participating. You clearly understand the real causes of the decline of life in the U.S. -- the excess power of the ultra wealthy, not them as individuals, or their generation.
Except for whatever company made the product called "Insert." Their commercials in this were so short, I would have bought them just to show my approval of their unobtrusive advertising. 😉
I know I've been here all my life and it's hard to believe that there were actually residential neighborhoods with children playing in the streets of Manhattan. No more
@@TowGunner Eddie Albert: actor, "war hero" - and sexy too, especially when he was at the peak of his manhood in his 50s, and still sporting a crew cut! On Google Images, there are pictures of Eddie Albert bare-chested. He had a magnificent torso, and he liked to show it off!
Eddie Albert: He was the warden in the original "Longest Yard" with Burt Reynolds and was the CEO in INC, the ficticious corporation in "Head Office" with very young Jane Seymour and Judge Reinhold. Eddie Albert always did great comedy.
When this was filmed I was a newborn up in Harlem/Washington Heights. Now here I am today 62yrs later, a product of NYC public schools, retired, having done the reverse migration thing , bought a home with living space in the south that I simply couldn't afford in the NY/NJ area. I'm about to collect social security to supplement my pension. I spent most of my life in NYC and later across the river in Northern NJ. 3 yrs ago when the younger of our 3 kids graduated from HS and went away to college, we sold our NJ home and migrated south. Things got to a point where it was time to re-locate to a warmer clime and a LOWER COST OF LIVING. I have to honestly say that I don't miss NYC. I'm glad we moved. Life is SHORT. Pretty much all of the people in this clip are gone. YOLO!!!
Thank you for posting this terrific video! The ferry Captain is priceless. I hadn't realized how skillful you have to be to navigate the shifting (and, strong) currents in the E River and then dock without jarring the passengers.
I am watching this film with nostalgia 😔… I was born in 1959 on 133 W. 89th St. an old turn of the century building, now it has been refurbished. So many beautiful memories… All the neighbors were middle or low middle class honest working people. My brother and I were fairly lucky (he was born in 1960), my mother had the luxury as a “stay home mom.” My dad (RIP) had a very good paid job, he was a foreman, worked in Queens and was well a payed. He could afford to send us to private school. The school was a Catholic one on West 90th street, St. Gregory the Great, it’s not there anymore. At one point all of us tenants were forced to move because the building was going to be torn down, which never happened. All they wanted to do was fix it to sell the units. We moved then to 91st street. As the years passed the area got very expensive. Mom had to study in a Beauty Institute to find a job upon graduation. Then the city became crime infested and dad was involved in a hold up 😢…. Eventually we had to move out of Manhattan… that hurt me so much (which still does today) I am a city gal… Thank you for this film!!! ☺️
@@jec1ny It seems you and I have lived in better times. In the 1950s - and and up to the mid 60s - there was a sense of general well-being and optimism about the future.
They were such wonderful years. Like that man said - everyone was friendly, good neighbors, etc. A very simple life where people can be content with much less.
I was 10 years old living on Isham Street when this movie was shot. My dad worked for the telephone company and my mom was a beautiful housewife caring for us 3 kids. You can feel the life of the city coming up from the sidewalk through the soles of your feet. And those feet would always be walking fast! To work, to school, to parks, museums, shopping, and always there were people!! This movie truly showed ordinary New Yorkers.. the invisble ones. I am so thrilled their voices and faces have been preserved some 60 years! And yet, today's New Yorkers are still as every bit as beautiful now as they were then. They create their own energy. Life is about working hard and creating value for the millions engaged with the city. There are wealthy people and poor people, but everyone brings something unique to the street.
A friend that I worked with in Saudi Arabia during Desert Storm 1, in 1990, lived on Isham Street. I remember distinctly him saying that. He had the NYC accent so thick it was mesmerizing. Great guy
Went to New York from Minneapolis when i was 11 years old with my aunt. Statue of Liberty, Automat, Empire State saw all the tourist sights. Culture shock.😮
This viewer and urban enthusiast believes U.S. cities are still a sight to behold. Consider, for example, Boston: an unmissable mix of old and new, or 18th century history and 21st century design. In fact, when one reflects on the Boston of the early ‘60s - provincial and highly segregated - it’s good to know that the so-called old days were by no means the pinnacle of the American experience.
Yes-!!! I enjoyed the neon lights lighting up the night-!!! Perhaps the best & brightest of all the big cities in the🌎-???🤔. Wasn't the 1st subway system built there-???🤔
This is amazing! Thank you so much for posting this. A real snapshot of life in The City with real New Yorkers from back in 1961. I was born a few years later and grew up in Bayside, Queens. The hustle and bustle was and always will be present in NYC, however, so much of the culture has changed dramatically.
This is Eddie Albert narrating and in the first scene. The guy from Green Acres, Mr. Douglas. Eddie got to live a long life dying at the age of 99 in 2005.
Born, raised, and still here, it's always a pleasure to view NYC just before or following my birth, knowing later I would enjoy the life. I'm always fascinated comparing the decades of what was, and is, now. Times Square then? And now. Midtown then? How it is now. Priceless of things that change yet still the same.
This is a wonderful, almost magical look back to a slice of time I fear is gone for good. NYC used to be wonderful. I was 5, when this was made, and it would be 6 more years for me to see it, albeit from an airplane that landed at the central airport. I couldn't believe that the lights were buildings. We took a cab to Kennedy, but it was dark. The next time I saw it was 73, and Times Square was just awful. There were X-XXX movies. I felt very unsafe. I had a girlfriend, and she and I would leave our children with our husbands, and come to this city to shop for our children. I mainly got ideas of what I wanted to sew, but she had lots of money, and I helped her pick things out for her daughter. She had no sense of style, of how to put an outfit together for a child, but I did. It was fun.
I love historical footage of NYC . I am OBSESSED with old stores and movie theatres . TOO often the cameras do not go INSIDE anywhere , but here they do ! Loved the S. Kleins "bargain basement" shot, the shot of that narrow novelty store and even those high end stores . I love seeing all the old vintage merchandise on the shelves. If I had ONE WISH it would be footage INSIDE those little "ma & pa" candy and soda shops that were in Brooklyn and Queens at the time. By the 1970s they all shut down the "soda fountain" areas and just used the counter as space for snacks , candy, open display boxes of Ring Dings and Yodels and chips . Anyone else from 86th Street in Brooklyn ?
So much for his belief, _"Keep Manhattan, just give me that countryside!"_ This film lets Eddie Albert display his eclectic and deep intellect. He was really a brilliant observer and very knowledgeable about science and society. Of course, he'll always be the hilariously perplexed farmer Oliver!
I grew up in 80s & 90s Staten Island but I appreciate this so much bc my fam was here during this video was made in Brooklyn and I like to imagine them walking around In this version of the city :) NYC is the best city on earth 🤍
I love how old school documentarians ask really blunt questions without establishing more than the lightest rapport as if it's normal. "So, are you a happy man?"
That made me laugh. Actually in NY it IS pretty normal to spontaneously talk with anyone as if you have known them all your life! My late mother came here from the UK and discovered this, and would mooch all over Manhattan chatting away. I repeatedly encourage tourists to do the same, they are often too shy. Also there tends to be very good eye contact here.
I was 3 days old when this film was published and living in Hoboken, NJ, a stone's throw from Manhattan. NYC was integral to our lives for employment and recreation. I had relatives who lived in Manhattan and Brooklyn. The middle and lower middle class are now gone from the city, Despite all of the growth of the city since 1961, it makes me sad that the "real people" are gone now.
I saw Hoboken two or three times on Action Kid's utube channel. It has a nice feel/vibe about it. Were the people of Hoboken very much aware of the Sinatra connection back then, or is it more of a thing since becoming more gentrified?
@@stuartwray6175 I also watch Action Kid's videos. Love his tours and commentary. Yes, people in Hoboken were aware of Sinatra and Hoboken back then, but they were a family one stayed away from. Not nice people. Though most people in Hoboken loved his singing ability. There is no denying that the man could sing. My mom called Sinatra "the hood." Dad wouldn't discuss him. But they both listened to his music as do I.
"The middle and lower middle class are now gone from the city". Huh? Greater NYC has a steady population (about 22 million). What "real people" are gone?
NYC rapidly decayed after this film, it was the NYC of my youngest years, I still remember it, the automats, the checkered cabs, the noise and the way people dressed. The only thing that's improved since 1961 is the air quality, it was the absolute pits at this time as most buildings had garbage incinerators and a lot of manufacturing was still on going in the Bronx and Queens (Gowanus Canal was its most polluted at this point). Think the best I ever saw NYC was in 2008 and 2010 when I went back and saw it vibrant once more.
Sure thing. It is now as good as it has ever been (traffic and parking excepted). NYC would never have gone down for 2 decades if it was not for (1) crack and gangs (2) well over $100 billion a year (still going on) transferred from the NY/NJ/CT region via the IRS to states "further west".
What a beautiful film. It reminds me of the photographic exhibition “The Family of Man” which depicted a universal view of mankind that emphasized the connection between all people in an infinite context of possibilities. I was indeed surprised to find this gem among the regular fare.
Beautiful time capsule. It’s fascinating to peer into people’s lives and to experience how truly humble they are. I would have loved to have seen Mary Martin in the Sound of Music (shown on the marquee here). No longer the city that never sleeps then and now. Nothing like a New Yorker who loves NYC. Born in Los Angeles in 56 and moved to Brooklyn in 86. NYC was the dream place.
It's crazy listening to how optimistic and happy everyone was, knowing by the end the 60's and into the 70's New York became a nightmare. As I get older I'm starting to realize how much time really is in a decade and how much happens in that time.
wow, what a wonderful film with Eddie Albert. 1961 has always been a favourite year and New York ... what an amazing place. Must admit, I would have been down off to Greenwich to check out Dylan as well as picking up a few copies of Fantastic Four 1 (and perhaps a few golden age comics as well in a second hand book store). Loved seeing all the fashions, the streets, the shops, the food etc
A short few years after the making of this film, Eddie Albert had a 100 % complete reversal of his love for Manhattan. So much so that he dragged his city-loving wife who went kicking and screaming the entire way to a farm in the Missouri Ozarks. A place called Hooterville. Just down the road from Crabwell Corners, Pixley, and Bug Tussle, home of the Clampetts, the Shady Rest Hotel, Arnold the Pig, Mr Haney And Sam Drucker. Talk about grounds for divorce!
He abducted her. They showed it literally in the opening theme. He grabs her and pulls her from her Park Avenue balcony to the farm on the grounds that “You are my wife.” Like that meant she was a possession, not a person.
Interesting/informative/entertaining. Excellent photography job along with interviews of workers from different occupations-!!!🤗. Very good tour of the different city areas. Enjoyed viewing the fruit & veggie stands/side walk cafes/deli shops & so forth😉. Glad to know that the once city dweller Oliver Wendell Douglas finally found his beloved " Green Acres "-!!!🤗. Wishing viewers a safe/healthy/prosperous (2024)🌈🎉💵😉.
I worked in downtown Manhattan for two years. I left that assignment a couple of years before the first World Center bombing. I really enjoyed the whole experience. From finally being accepted (after a year or so) as a regular at a diner for each breakfast (bagel and lox), to the street musicians over long lunch "hours". Everyone seemed to think that at least 90 minutes was of normal length for lunch.
It was definitely a more vital city back in the day - anyone could move there and find a place to live and a job to support themselves, and that's why so many artists came to New York in the 20th century and gave the city its legendary reputation of greatness. NY still tries to trade on that reputation, but its dwindling. Now it's a city for the rich and the artists are going elsewhere. Poverty can certainly kill a city, but excessive concentrations of wealth can also have a deadening effect. Perhaps the 21st century will see a new US city rise to greatness while NY becomes a fading memory of past greatness.
The problem is not just the amount of wealth, but the excess power they have been handed in this era. The billionaires' PACs control housing and tax policy, media, education, the national discourse, the food supply, health care.
NYC has always had a concentration of wealth, that's why people came there ,to work for the wealth. The poverty, darkening and entitlement of the poor is what kills it.
That lady at 32:14, very wise New Yorker: Is the city going to the dogs (1961)? No, remember last century, how rough it was? - Here's someone who reads and knows the history and doesn't shoot her mouth, spewing hate at immigrants or blaming crime on a specific type of people. She knows how rough it can be in a CITY, especially one like New York. From other videos about NY I read about people pining for an old NY, like in the 1970's or 80's. Phhhhffft, I lived here since 1970, NYC has always seemed to be going to "the dogs." you want stability? Move to smalltown, Wyoming, but don't call back complaining about meth everywhere or your kids being almost eaten by a bear. I♥NY.
Born in the Bronx in 1952! Left in the early 70’s for a new life out West! Met a Philly girl in Az. Returned back East to Philadelphia Pa. 22 years ago!
I wonder if Mr Blue's (the window cleaner)descendants know about this film. How cool would it be to watch a film of my great grandfather being interviewed 63 yrs ago!
Many of us feel nostalgia for a place where we never lived. This is a great documentary from a time when NYC was entering a Golden Age of sorts. In 1945, itwas the only major city in the Western World that had come through WW2 without being totally or partially destroyed. So it had a head start on becoming a glamorous (but real) place. My favorite segment of this film is the one of Gramercy Park.
@@rr7firefly What you wrote about New York in 1945 is true. At that time, America was at the peak of its power & prestige. When I lived in the U.S. in the early 1970s, an older good friend of mine, from an affluent family, well-educated and with good taste, told me that New York was at its best in the 1940s and 50s. The turning point - for the worse - took place around 1965. That's what I meant when I wrote that "by 1961 New York's "Golden Age" was coming to an end." When I watch American movies or documenataries made between 1961 to 1965, I feel that America was still at its peak. Things started to unravel from 1966 onwads. By the late 60s, everything had changed, including stardards of clothing and behaviour, which fell by the wayside, seemingly forever.
@@rr7firefly I had a look at your Profile. I share the same interests with you, including an interest in the "Super Conscious Mind" and an appreciation of Frank Sinatra and his album "A Man Alone". I love that LP and I still have it. You seem to be quite a special person with a highly evolved consciousness.
@@j.g.8494 Thank you for your kind words. Looking back on my early days on this earth, I see a child who had an innate curiosity about the world around him. This meant further investigation(s)... in the process making connections between different things. (one example: underlying structures in music, art and architecture, as in "The Glass Bead Game.") From an early age I had a love for complex structures. I also had the advantages of having books around. My parents had a respectable collection of records that became a solid foundation for a broad musical landscape. At the age of eleven I was familiar with at least 20 classical composers. (Nothing too avant-garde then, but I was able to appreciate both Mozart and Stravinsky.) My sisters and I went to Catholic school and were taught by strict Belgian nuns. (They considered the U.S. a backward country, so you can imagine their emphasis on European culture.) I don't intend to present an extensive biography here, but will just say that having a sense of adventure took me a long way. That includes lots of spiritual, philosophical and psychological study. // What about you? I think that knowing "A Man Alone" says a lot about appreciating finer things. Have you ever lived in NYC? Or spent a lot of time there?
I can’t wait for x Christmas. Driving downtown Toronto reminiscing Canada back in the eighties. Driving through Jewish neighborhood. Listening to jazz. New York manhattan looks like Toronto. Everything is expensive and unliveable. I did enjoy this bit of history. Most documentary I watch on New York is about mafia gangs violence
This film captures the New York of Jane Jacobs, author of "The Death and Life of Great American Cities". Not too many years after this, she abandoned NYC for Toronto, because this style of New York invisible life was fast becoming obsolete.
Jane’s work in nyc was a success; she helped save the Village from a huge interstate and it remains the one city in North America where it’s common for residents not to need a driver’s license or a car. In New York you walk.
I was only one year old when this was filmed. I lived in San Fransisco and remember when i was 3 i could just run around outside, even go the the little store around the corner. Just me and my 4 year old sister. How it’s all changed is really sad.
Oh yes! When Eddie Albert's character, Oliver Wendell Douglas, got sick and tired of the rat race of the city.. He decided to fulfill his lifelong dream of becoming a farmer; the backbone of the American economy. He wanted to plant the little seeds in the rich brown earth. And watch them shoot up towards the sun and the sky until they become corn, wheat and alfalfa. In real life, Eddie Albert's co-star, Eva Gabor, was living in New York with her husband at the time, Wall Street stockbroker Richard Brown, until she got the call from Hollywood to go out there and test for the part of Lisa Douglas. And the rest they say, is television history right there.
All of those people were actually happy! They liked what they did and where they lived - and they didn't have loads of money and they were genuinely happy! Lessons to be learned here! (Alas, the happy people and the happy neighborhoods got pushed out for more expensive high rise residentials... that now sit half empty and unhappy.)
@@land7776 I prefer to never have been born in this horrible world….ECCLESIASTIC 4:3… better is he that never existed, so he doesn’t have to see what’s under the sun…✝️✝️✝️
Good video. I grew up in the Bronx in the 60s and 70s. Nothing has changed really, people did then what they do now, the difference is a far more open society now where everything is talked about openly.
Nothing has changed? Baloney! I'm a Bronxite born and raised. Fox Street off Intervale, then Valentine Ave off Fordham, and finally Pelham Parkway. All the neighborhoods I lived in are now shot to hell. Garbage on the sidewalk, graffiti all over the buildings, kids fighting in the street, people dressed like slobs. The Bronx was once a great place to raise a family. Not anymore.
@@liamsandal6360 I stand by my comment. Human behavior has always been what it is now. Btw was there garbage in the streets of Holcomb, Kansas in 1959, how about Lincoln, Nebraska in 1958, or Bay Village, Ohio in 1954? I could go on but they make my point. You know these dates, places and what happened
@@imetaboyiusedtoknow8308 I understand what you are saying, but people had more respect for themselves and for others years ago. No, it wasn't all rosy, but no matter the ethnicity, people were in better shape, communicated more clearly, and treated their bodies, homes and neighborhoods with much more respect. It's not even close. In each of the neighborhoods I grew up in, you knew your neighbors and they knew you. People sat out on the stoop together and socialized. There was a sense of community, of family. These qualities make a neighborhood. Now, it's all gone.
What everyone should notice in this video is that there are hardly any obese people to be seen! For God's sake, everybody, if you want to live to a ripe old age, change your diet! It is the ultraprocessed food people are consuming that is causing people to be overweight! This results in all kinds of health problems leading to an early death! Start eating better, everybody! Eat whole fruits and vegetables, avoid fast food as much as possible, and most important of all, don't touch anything that contains a lot of sugar! Sugar in large quantities is a deadly poison! I am now 71 years old, in quite good health because I eat properly, but people my age are dropping like flies! Most of these people were overweight, and as a result had health problems such as diabetes and high blood pressure! Regarding exercise, it goes without saying that a certain amount of exercise is necessary for good health, but you don't have to go to the extreme with this! You don't have to run a marathon every week! I am from Canada, and just like every Western country, there is a huge problem with obesity here! In countries like India and China, as soon as the people there consume western food, they end up becoming overweight as well! Look at the video carefully, and as I pointed out earlier, there are hardly any obese people to be seen! It is not just this video, any film from this era and earlier shows the same thing!
@@peterquennellnycI grew up in Queens in the 60's - 80's. When I went back in 2020, I walked and took the train everywhere. My fitbit said I was walking 10 miles a day. Add that with a bike, less fast food, candy, soda etc and I can see why I was such a skinny kid haha
Well, she's reflects a lot of privilege. Not that people like that can't be genuine, but she seemed to me very primed for the camera. And not too aware of the real world, honestly.
@@MichaelWarchol She seemed like she was about 17, until she would grin impishly - then she'd look 14. So I'm guessing she was born about 1946, and maybe she's 78 today. Still grinning impishly.
This incarnation of the big apple is long lost to time, thanks for this great upload
It's not long lost, it'll just take a few years to fix. Vote desantis
@@obamaobama7965 Unfortunately for you, we cannot go back in time. Progress marches ever onwards even if it must leave you in the dust.
You cannot bring back the past.
I appreciate seeing regular folks nicely groomed and dressed in a decent fashion!!!
Wonderful film! I would have been 11 when this was made, I lived in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn and what we see in this film is how I remember things. No one will ever convince me that things weren't better back then!
NO!!! Things were NOT better back then. Advances in medicine alone were worth the trip forward in time.
@@cats0182Less crime, and much more affordable made it better
@cats0182… there existed back then a magical charm that faded with every decade and rotted into rust.. we all marvel at technology but we lost something far more valuable in the process. Look at the current state of America today. Medical advancements to physically transform a man into a woman? The Frankenstein monster that came to life 60 yrs later. No thanks
@@thorgt8197 Well said.
Born in Brooklyn. Raised in Rockaway Beach. Now 83 years old and haven't been back to NYC in decades. Watched this video in absolute stunned silence. Nothing else for me to say.
I grew up in brooklyn in the greenpoint area, brooklyn has changed and looks stunning now ,hope you can visit again
You know where you're going to spend eternity "Right"-!!!😳.
@@GinaBrooklyn1-ux3px Greenpoint is stunning. The waterside is developed while the old streets maintain their epic charm. Downtown is super tall but VERY DANGEROUS now. Greetings from Morningside Heights ! NYC is a DUMP these days.
Born and raised in NYC. Grew up during the 70s. Son of Sam, blackout, Fort Apache, subway crime but it was utopia compared to today. The inmates are literally running the asylum.
Rock-Rock, Rockaway Beach !
This was both enjoyable and sad, as I remember when NYC had style and class. People had manners and dressed well.
Watching this made me very emotional. I’m a child of the 70s and 80s but watching this makes me miss something I feel I’ve lived before in another life. I’m sure it wasn’t always easy in those times but things were much simpler than this world we live in now. 😢
Thanks for sharing...
I hear you. I grew up in the same era as you and I miss my youth in The Bronx.😞💔 I never thought I'd say that, too, but nostalgia has hit me hard since approaching 60. I miss those times, even if they weren't perfect.😔❤️
@@jademusic1211 Agree 100%!
I love these old style documentaries. Very relaxing to watch. New stuff today has way too many fast edits. People today got the tiktok brain. Every few seconds a jump cut.
I can never get enough of viewing life from another yesterday. I learned and grew through viewing these films.
R.I.P. Eddie Albert and all those featured in this video who have passed away.
Green Acres
1961 was about the year American Grafiitti took place- there was something magical yet ordinary about that year, random but before the great upheavals of assassinations, war, racial strife, etc...
@@land7776 Well said.
@@swannoir7949e
@@land7776 And movements such as free love and Roe vs Wade.
I was 15 and in high school when this film was out. I attended Haaren High school, on 10th Avenue, between 58th & 59th street. I was born in Brooklyn, Kings County Hospital, in 1946. Lived in Bed- Sty until I was 8, then my mom moved to Ft. Greene Housing Projects. (R.V. Ingersoll Housing/ Walt Witman Housing) I loved growing up there, it was like a family village. You learned a lot about life and how to survive in the real world. I still harbor fond memories of my time, growing up and living there.
Having been born in 1946 and spending some years at the Ft. Green Houses, I take it that you probably rode the old Myrtle Avenue El a few times growing up during the 50's and 60's!
I grew up in The Bronx during the 80's and 90's. I attended Adlai Stevenson H.S. My parents can remember taking the old Bronx 3rd Avenue El to Fordham Road with their respective parents for clothes shopping. Wish I could take a camera and time travel back to those days and shoot pictures of all those old neighborhoods.❤
A beautiful, innocent film with a jazz complexity portending the dissonance to come. I've lived here 60 years and will probably be here till I die. What a beautiful place - not compared to rurality, but for us who come from here, still home.
Jazz complexity portending the dissonance to come.., nicely stated. You are a person who gets it. I hope you’re writing everyday.
Agreed, at times I was reminded of a 60 Minutes segment, only longer.
Originally telecast on July 27, 1961.
I was in NYC back in 1965 for the New York Worlds Fair. I had the best time of my life and made some of the most memorable experiences.
I was there too! I remember some of it even though I was only four. My family and I took a train from Ohio to NYC believe it or not.
1961 was the year I was born back in the BRONX. WHAT AN ASTRONOMICAL DIFFERENCE COMPARE WHAT it IS TO DAY.
Was born this year and i know the City very well. NYer most of my life andy sad ahowed me all of old NYC. Glad i lived to see it because one day people will never believe it existed. But, i lived it AND I LOVED IT. Bye bye NYC it was so good to know you!!!
Well said!
Born Sydenham Hospital, 1961, Harlem. Grew up in the Riverton. Proud New Yorker. 👍🏽😎🇺🇸
I was born same year 1961 at Columbia Presbyterian (where Malcolm was pronounced dead in 1965). Grew up Washington heights/Harlem. Now an average wage earner cannot afford to rent or much less buy a residence in these once blacklisted neighborhoods. Back when I was coming up they didn’t have anything north of 110th street on those tourist maps
Synenham hospital only took well to do blacks ,mostly middle class n city employees
Born 1961 in Harlem Hospital.
Brooklyn 1960's thru 70's & 80's here 🕺🌇🌆
who else remembers ?
What area ?
@@LannieLord Ridgewood mostly but moved often. for a while also lived in Amityville then back.
Lived in Brooklyn in 1952 and 1953.
Brooklyn Heights and Park Slope then Glendale...left in 1995.
I was 8 years old living in Queens when this film was produced so I feel a bit more connection than most however a large part of the film relates to a lifestyle that the vast majority of New Yorkers would never live be it Turtle Bay or even the owner of a deli. But there is gold here… the Russian immigrant from 1913 asked what makes a man happy. He responded… moments of not being hungry or sick. The first half of my seventy years were lived in NYC and its environs. I met a refugee from Vietnam in NYC in 1976. We married in 1977. We would end up living in Vietnam the second half of my life where we remain. Thankfully not hungry … not sick and therefore happy… with happy memories of NYC and a happy life here all thanks to lucky stars!
Thank you for sharing.
Lovely stuff.
Speaks volumes that Katz Deli is frequented by working people in the film and is now just a tourist trap, with huge queues and $25 sandwiches.
So many working and middle class people living in Manhattan back then. They gave the city an authenticity and charm that it has definitely lost to the whim of billionaires that one by one tear down the old and build garish new skyscrapers, only to visit a few times a year. So sad.
You are right, and thank you for putting the thought into this issue to not blame the easy targets of immigrants, or trophies for participating. You clearly understand the real causes of the decline of life in the U.S. -- the excess power of the ultra wealthy, not them as individuals, or their generation.
@@brianarbenz1329 Money ruins everything.
Except for whatever company made the product called "Insert." Their commercials in this were so short, I would have bought them just to show my approval of their unobtrusive advertising. 😉
I know I've been here all my life and it's hard to believe that there were actually residential neighborhoods with children playing in the streets of Manhattan. No more
You are right. The wealthy are slowly sucking the life out of NY these days!! The working class needs to fight back!
Our host is Eddie Albert from Green Acres. He was a great actor. 🙏🏻
Thanks for the info. I had no idea who Eddie Albert was. I thought he was a TV personality, who was chosen to present this video.
Thank you, I knew that was him only could remember Green Acres.
…….. and a war hero.
@@TowGunner Eddie Albert: actor, "war hero" - and sexy too, especially when he was at the peak of his manhood in his 50s, and still sporting a crew cut! On Google Images, there are pictures of Eddie Albert bare-chested. He had a magnificent torso, and he liked to show it off!
Eddie Albert: He was the warden in the original "Longest Yard" with Burt Reynolds and was the CEO in INC, the ficticious corporation in "Head Office" with very young Jane Seymour and Judge Reinhold. Eddie Albert always did great comedy.
Everyone is dressed so nicely. I wish people weren’t so sloppy today.
Back then folks took pride in their appearance. Looking good was important and beneficial.
I know! The hippies and that whole generation inspired everyone going forward to dress like garbage.
@@DayTwo-w8n Then the hippies came
В Москве люди очень хорошо выглядят, здесь нет гомосексуалистов и негров
When this was filmed I was a newborn up in Harlem/Washington Heights. Now here I am today 62yrs later, a product of NYC public schools, retired, having done the reverse migration thing , bought a home with living space in the south that I simply couldn't afford in the NY/NJ area. I'm about to collect social security to supplement my pension. I spent most of my life in NYC and later across the river in Northern NJ. 3 yrs ago when the younger of our 3 kids graduated from HS and went away to college, we sold our NJ home and migrated south. Things got to a point where it was time to re-locate to a warmer clime and a LOWER COST OF LIVING. I have to honestly say that I don't miss NYC. I'm glad we moved. Life is SHORT. Pretty much all of the people in this clip are gone. YOLO!!!
Well you definitely wouldn’t miss NYC these days with all the nonsense going on🤷🏼
Anybody 40 years old and older in 1961 are certainly gone by 2024.🤷🏼
Well now I’m curious because you did the same thing (relocating to a cheaper country, Cambodia). Where did you go?
@@JohnDoe-nh7bb moved to SC
@@Cornbread-gi6kt thx math professor
Fresh air, Times Square. This is a wistful video of a time long gone by. Glad it was filmed in black & white which adds to the appeal.
Thank you for posting this terrific video! The ferry Captain is priceless. I hadn't realized how skillful you have to be to navigate the shifting (and, strong) currents in the E River and then dock without jarring the passengers.
Our pleasure!
I am watching this film with nostalgia 😔… I was born in 1959 on 133 W. 89th St. an old turn of the century building, now it has been refurbished. So many beautiful memories… All the neighbors were middle or low middle class honest working people. My brother and I were fairly lucky (he was born in 1960), my mother had the luxury as a “stay home mom.” My dad (RIP) had a very good paid job, he was a foreman, worked in Queens and was well a payed. He could afford to send us to private school. The school was a Catholic one on West 90th street, St. Gregory the Great, it’s not there anymore. At one point all of us tenants were forced to move because the building was going to be torn down, which never happened. All they wanted to do was fix it to sell the units. We moved then to 91st street. As the years passed the area got very expensive. Mom had to study in a Beauty Institute to find a job upon graduation. Then the city became crime infested and dad was involved in a hold up 😢…. Eventually we had to move out of Manhattan… that hurt me so much (which still does today) I am a city gal… Thank you for this film!!! ☺️
You're welcome. Thanks for sharing.
Loved your description Diane, was born in 58' too, that way of life is long gone.
@@kevinharris5737 Aww thank you so much 😊 I appreciate your kind words 🙋🏼♀️💞
@@MoviecraftInc ♥️
@kevinharris5737 the smog was awful
‘Simply captivating ‘documentary !!!🎥 📚🗽🎭🎈💯#SOULFUL #Grateful
Much appreciated!
A world long gone by.
I bet you miss it - just like I do!
@@j.g.8494 I do.
@@jec1ny It seems you and I have lived in better times. In the 1950s - and and up to the mid 60s - there was a sense of general well-being and optimism about the future.
Many of the same issues persist and also the good things.
The why’d you stand by while it was being ruined?
These people have more dignity than the folks I see these days. And no one staring at their phone.
They were such wonderful years.
Like that man said - everyone was friendly, good neighbors, etc.
A very simple life where people can be content with much less.
Because they didn't have phones, genius
The wee boy using The Waldorf as a shortcut has made my night.
I was 10 years old living on Isham Street when this movie was shot. My dad worked for the telephone company and my mom was a beautiful housewife caring for us 3 kids. You can feel the life of the city coming up from the sidewalk through the soles of your feet. And those feet would always be walking fast! To work, to school, to parks, museums, shopping, and always there were people!! This movie truly showed ordinary New Yorkers.. the invisble ones. I am so thrilled their voices and faces have been preserved some 60 years! And yet, today's New Yorkers are still as every bit as beautiful now as they were then. They create their own energy. Life is about working hard and creating value for the millions engaged with the city. There are wealthy people and poor people, but everyone brings something unique to the street.
Wonderful story. Thanks.
@palehowl I also grew up on Isham St in Inwood, but 3 decades after you. It’s like we are all just passing through and transient in this life
Eddie Albert was a wonderful man. I think he really loved NYC but America. Down to earth as they come and very smart and a laugh riot humor.
A friend that I worked with in Saudi Arabia during Desert Storm 1, in 1990, lived on Isham Street. I remember distinctly him saying that. He had the NYC accent so thick it was mesmerizing. Great guy
Well honestly I couldn’t have done any better 😉🎥🗽🇺🇸✝️🎭🙏🏼💯🎶🎈
Went to New York from Minneapolis when i was 11 years old with my aunt. Statue of Liberty, Automat, Empire State saw all the tourist sights. Culture shock.😮
American cities were once a site to behold and American engineering marvels.
This viewer and urban enthusiast believes U.S. cities are still a sight to behold. Consider, for example, Boston: an unmissable mix of old and new, or 18th century history and 21st century design. In fact, when one reflects on the Boston of the early ‘60s - provincial and highly segregated - it’s good to know that the so-called old days were by no means the pinnacle of the American experience.
Yes-!!! I enjoyed the neon lights lighting up the night-!!! Perhaps the best & brightest of all the big cities in the🌎-???🤔. Wasn't the 1st subway system built there-???🤔
NYC was best in the 2000s for normal folks. Great place to raise kids. Before that would be 50’s and 60’s. Still very great place to live.
A 'sight' even!
Born in Manhattan, 1961, raised on 3rd St and 1st Ave, lower East Side, Thanks so much for this!
Our pleasure!
I miss Eddie Albert.
They were much more poetic in describing things back then.
People read more.
This is amazing! Thank you so much for posting this. A real snapshot of life in The City with real New Yorkers from back in 1961. I was born a few years later and grew up in Bayside, Queens. The hustle and bustle was and always will be present in NYC, however, so much of the culture has changed dramatically.
You're very welcome!
This is Eddie Albert narrating and in the first scene. The guy from Green Acres, Mr. Douglas. Eddie got to live a long life dying at the age of 99 in 2005.
He was a WWII vet!
Interesting to know about his long life. He was a handsome man!
I was born in 67 Eddie Albert was old all my life. Of course now that I’m getting up there Eddie looks younger here.
Born, raised, and still here, it's always a pleasure to view NYC just before or following my birth, knowing later I would enjoy the life. I'm always fascinated comparing the decades of what was, and is, now. Times Square then? And now. Midtown then? How it is now. Priceless of things that change yet still the same.
This film 🎥 has meant so very much too me 😉🗽🇺🇸🎭🙏🏼✝️🎈#ThankYou 💜
I like this ❤!
Fascinating. I really enjoyed this!
Awesome, thank you!
This is a wonderful, almost magical look back to a slice of time I fear is gone for good. NYC used to be wonderful. I was 5, when this was made, and it would be 6 more years for me to see it, albeit from an airplane that landed at the central airport. I couldn't believe that the lights were buildings. We took a cab to Kennedy, but it was dark. The next time I saw it was 73, and Times Square was just awful. There were X-XXX movies. I felt very unsafe. I had a girlfriend, and she and I would leave our children with our husbands, and come to this city to shop for our children. I mainly got ideas of what I wanted to sew, but she had lots of money, and I helped her pick things out for her daughter. She had no sense of style, of how to put an outfit together for a child, but I did. It was fun.
Born in 66 but this time period in America fascinates me .
And I just subbed 😊
Thanks for this fascinating documentary. I enjoyed it very much. 👍🏻
So glad!
What a difference multi culturaism has in society
Born in Harlem 3 years after this documentary was made; great images of this grand old city.
I love historical footage of NYC . I am OBSESSED with old stores and movie theatres . TOO often the cameras do not go INSIDE anywhere , but here they do !
Loved the S. Kleins "bargain basement" shot, the shot of that narrow novelty store and even those high end stores . I love seeing all the old vintage merchandise on the shelves. If I had ONE WISH it would be footage INSIDE those little "ma & pa" candy and soda shops that were in Brooklyn and Queens at the time. By the 1970s they all shut down the "soda fountain" areas and just used the counter as space for snacks , candy, open display boxes of Ring Dings and Yodels and chips . Anyone else from 86th Street in Brooklyn ?
So much for his belief, _"Keep Manhattan, just give me that countryside!"_ This film lets Eddie Albert display his eclectic and deep intellect. He was really a brilliant observer and very knowledgeable about science and society. Of course, he'll always be the hilariously perplexed farmer Oliver!
I grew up in 80s & 90s Staten Island but I appreciate this so much bc my fam was here during this video was made in Brooklyn and I like to imagine them walking around In this version of the city :)
NYC is the best city on earth 🤍
I love how old school documentarians ask really blunt questions without establishing more than the lightest rapport as if it's normal.
"So, are you a happy man?"
That made me laugh. Actually in NY it IS pretty normal to spontaneously talk with anyone as if you have known them all your life! My late mother came here from the UK and discovered this, and would mooch all over Manhattan chatting away. I repeatedly encourage tourists to do the same, they are often too shy. Also there tends to be very good eye contact here.
I was 3 days old when this film was published and living in Hoboken, NJ, a stone's throw from Manhattan. NYC was integral to our lives for employment and recreation. I had relatives who lived in Manhattan and Brooklyn. The middle and lower middle class are now gone from the city, Despite all of the growth of the city since 1961, it makes me sad that the "real people" are gone now.
I saw Hoboken two or three times on Action Kid's utube channel. It has a nice feel/vibe about it.
Were the people of Hoboken very much aware of the Sinatra connection back then, or is it more of a thing since becoming more gentrified?
@@stuartwray6175 I also watch Action Kid's videos. Love his tours and commentary. Yes, people in Hoboken were aware of Sinatra and Hoboken back then, but they were a family one stayed away from. Not nice people. Though most people in Hoboken loved his singing ability. There is no denying that the man could sing. My mom called Sinatra "the hood." Dad wouldn't discuss him. But they both listened to his music as do I.
"The middle and lower middle class are now gone from the city". Huh? Greater NYC has a steady population (about 22 million). What "real people" are gone?
Great to see NYC the year I was born
Especially since I never went there until 2017
12 years later from 1961 the city started to die till the late 80’s. It was the best again in the 2000s. What a ride.
Great documentary
NYC rapidly decayed after this film, it was the NYC of my youngest years, I still remember it, the automats, the checkered cabs, the noise and the way people dressed. The only thing that's improved since 1961 is the air quality, it was the absolute pits at this time as most buildings had garbage incinerators and a lot of manufacturing was still on going in the Bronx and Queens (Gowanus Canal was its most polluted at this point). Think the best I ever saw NYC was in 2008 and 2010 when I went back and saw it vibrant once more.
Sure thing. It is now as good as it has ever been (traffic and parking excepted). NYC would never have gone down for 2 decades if it was not for (1) crack and gangs (2) well over $100 billion a year (still going on) transferred from the NY/NJ/CT region via the IRS to states "further west".
EXCELLENT THANK YOU ONLY FOR REAL NEW YORKERS GREAT MEMORIES
1961 I was in nursery school
Feel like reading Life magazine archives which I have downloaded on my laptop!!
What a beautiful film. It reminds me of the photographic exhibition “The Family of Man” which depicted a universal view of mankind that emphasized the connection between all people in an infinite context of possibilities. I was indeed surprised to find this gem among the regular fare.
I just turned 1 year old then. God bless America🇺🇸🙏
"It looks just like a mountain of gold." That is exactly what NYC looks like at night. The best description ever!
Beautiful time capsule. It’s fascinating to peer into people’s lives and to experience how truly humble they are. I would have loved to have seen Mary Martin in the Sound of Music (shown on the marquee here). No longer the city that never sleeps then and now. Nothing like a New Yorker who loves NYC. Born in Los Angeles in 56 and moved to Brooklyn in 86. NYC was the dream place.
wow, why did you move from LA to Brooklyn at 30 yrs. old?
It's crazy listening to how optimistic and happy everyone was, knowing by the end the 60's and into the 70's New York became a nightmare. As I get older I'm starting to realize how much time really is in a decade and how much happens in that time.
Just a few years before I was born. I interesting video. I'm from Brooklyn.
wow, what a wonderful film with Eddie Albert. 1961 has always been a favourite year and New York ... what an amazing place. Must admit, I would have been down off to Greenwich to check out Dylan as well as picking up a few copies of Fantastic Four 1 (and perhaps a few golden age comics as well in a second hand book store). Loved seeing all the fashions, the streets, the shops, the food etc
Great movie!
Thank you for posting this
The year that I was born...simpler times.
Yep, I was born November of that year in the Philly suburbs
A short few years after the making of this film, Eddie Albert had a 100 % complete reversal of his love for Manhattan. So much so that he dragged his city-loving wife who went kicking and screaming the entire way to a farm in the Missouri Ozarks. A place called Hooterville. Just down the road from Crabwell Corners, Pixley, and Bug Tussle, home of the Clampetts, the Shady Rest Hotel, Arnold the Pig, Mr Haney And Sam Drucker. Talk about grounds for divorce!
He abducted her. They showed it literally in the opening theme. He grabs her and pulls her from her Park Avenue balcony to the farm on the grounds that “You are my wife.” Like that meant she was a possession, not a person.
I heard he bought the old Haney place.
LOL, LOLOL.
That Shady Rest hotel had some hot hot daughters. You were a fool if you didn't overnight at the Junction.
"Oooohhhhh, Lisa!!!"
Pretty nice film 👌
Interesting/informative/entertaining. Excellent photography job along with interviews of workers from different occupations-!!!🤗. Very good tour of the different city areas. Enjoyed viewing the fruit & veggie stands/side walk cafes/deli shops & so forth😉. Glad to know that the once city dweller Oliver Wendell Douglas finally found his beloved " Green Acres "-!!!🤗. Wishing viewers a safe/healthy/prosperous (2024)🌈🎉💵😉.
Thank you very much!
I worked in downtown Manhattan for two years. I left that assignment a couple of years before the first World Center bombing. I really enjoyed the whole experience. From finally being accepted (after a year or so) as a regular at a diner for each breakfast (bagel and lox), to the street musicians over long lunch "hours". Everyone seemed to think that at least 90 minutes was of normal length for lunch.
Thanks for sharing.
It was definitely a more vital city back in the day - anyone could move there and find a place to live and a job to support themselves, and that's why so many artists came to New York in the 20th century and gave the city its legendary reputation of greatness. NY still tries to trade on that reputation, but its dwindling. Now it's a city for the rich and the artists are going elsewhere. Poverty can certainly kill a city, but excessive concentrations of wealth can also have a deadening effect. Perhaps the 21st century will see a new US city rise to greatness while NY becomes a fading memory of past greatness.
The problem is not just the amount of wealth, but the excess power they have been handed in this era. The billionaires' PACs control housing and tax policy, media, education, the national discourse, the food supply, health care.
NYC has always had a concentration of wealth, that's why people came there ,to work for the wealth. The poverty, darkening and entitlement of the poor is what kills it.
That lady at 32:14, very wise New Yorker: Is the city going to the dogs (1961)? No, remember last century, how rough it was? - Here's someone who reads and knows the history and doesn't shoot her mouth, spewing hate at immigrants or blaming crime on a specific type of people. She knows how rough it can be in a CITY, especially one like New York.
From other videos about NY I read about people pining for an old NY, like in the 1970's or 80's. Phhhhffft, I lived here since 1970, NYC has always seemed to be going to "the dogs." you want stability? Move to smalltown, Wyoming, but don't call back complaining about meth everywhere or your kids being almost eaten by a bear. I♥NY.
Born in the Bronx in 1952! Left in the early 70’s for a new life out West! Met a Philly girl in Az. Returned back East to Philadelphia Pa. 22 years ago!
Philly is really nice. Gardens, museums, flower show, just great. Just dont tell anyone about the Reading market!!
@@peterquennellnyc Yep! Redding Terminal Market is awesome!
I wonder if Mr Blue's (the window cleaner)descendants know about this film. How cool would it be to watch a film of my great grandfather being interviewed 63 yrs ago!
I hope the family discovers it some day in the near future.
Many of us feel nostalgia for a place where we never lived. This is a great documentary from a time when NYC was entering a Golden Age of sorts. In 1945, itwas the only major city in the Western World that had come through WW2 without being totally or partially destroyed. So it had a head start on becoming a glamorous (but real) place. My favorite segment of this film is the one of Gramercy Park.
I think that by 1961 New York's "Golden Age" was coming to an end.
@@j.g.8494 Could you please expound on that? What was it that you could see as either clear indications or portents of things to come?
@@rr7firefly What you wrote about New York in 1945 is true. At that time, America was at the peak of its power & prestige. When I lived in the U.S. in the early 1970s, an older good friend of mine, from an affluent family, well-educated and with good taste, told me that New York was at its best in the 1940s and 50s. The turning point - for the worse - took place around 1965. That's what I meant when I wrote that "by 1961 New York's "Golden Age" was coming to an end." When I watch American movies or documenataries made between 1961 to 1965, I feel that America was still at its peak. Things started to unravel from 1966 onwads. By the late 60s, everything had changed, including stardards of clothing and behaviour, which fell by the wayside, seemingly forever.
@@rr7firefly I had a look at your Profile. I share the same interests with you, including an interest in the "Super Conscious Mind" and an appreciation of Frank Sinatra and his album "A Man Alone". I love that LP and I still have it. You seem to be quite a special person with a highly evolved consciousness.
@@j.g.8494 Thank you for your kind words. Looking back on my early days on this earth, I see a child who had an innate curiosity about the world around him. This meant further investigation(s)... in the process making connections between different things. (one example: underlying structures in music, art and architecture, as in "The Glass Bead Game.") From an early age I had a love for complex structures. I also had the advantages of having books around. My parents had a respectable collection of records that became a solid foundation for a broad musical landscape. At the age of eleven I was familiar with at least 20 classical composers. (Nothing too avant-garde then, but I was able to appreciate both Mozart and Stravinsky.) My sisters and I went to Catholic school and were taught by strict Belgian nuns. (They considered the U.S. a backward country, so you can imagine their emphasis on European culture.) I don't intend to present an extensive biography here, but will just say that having a sense of adventure took me a long way. That includes lots of spiritual, philosophical and psychological study. // What about you? I think that knowing "A Man Alone" says a lot about appreciating finer things. Have you ever lived in NYC? Or spent a lot of time there?
Just terrific!
I can’t wait for x Christmas. Driving downtown Toronto reminiscing Canada back in the eighties. Driving through Jewish neighborhood. Listening to jazz. New York manhattan looks like Toronto. Everything is expensive and unliveable. I did enjoy this bit of history. Most documentary I watch on New York is about mafia gangs violence
the man at 22 minutes ❤️❤️
Great video great time then
Yes indeed
13:18 129 Pitt Street has an apartment building there now. Those tenements were demolished.
This film captures the New York of Jane Jacobs, author of "The Death and Life of Great American Cities". Not too many years after this, she abandoned NYC for Toronto, because this style of New York invisible life was fast becoming obsolete.
I am from Toronto, and thanks to Jane, a lot of historical buildings were saved that would have otherwise have been demolished!❤❤❤
@@StanZ-i6w Interesting to know. I lived in Toronto from 1975 to 1995. I read about "The Greening of Toronto" in Time magazine, in June 1995.
Jane’s work in nyc was a success; she helped save the Village from a huge interstate and it remains the one city in North America where it’s common for residents not to need a driver’s license or a car. In New York you walk.
What a marvelous book that is
“Busy in a ‘busy way” !!!🐝#Touching
I was only one year old when this was filmed. I lived in San Fransisco and remember when i was 3 i could just run around outside, even go the the little store around the corner. Just me and my 4 year old sister. How it’s all changed is really sad.
I had a friend in California Keith Marso who had a Photo on his mantle of Eddie Arnold .
4 years after this film, Eddie would star as a New York City lawyer who moves to the country and takes up farming, on "Green Acres".
Oh yes! When Eddie Albert's character, Oliver Wendell Douglas, got sick and tired of the rat race of the city.. He decided to fulfill his lifelong dream of becoming a farmer; the backbone of the American economy. He wanted to plant the little seeds in the rich brown earth. And watch them shoot up towards the sun and the sky until they become corn, wheat and alfalfa.
In real life, Eddie Albert's co-star, Eva Gabor, was living in New York with her husband at the time, Wall Street stockbroker Richard Brown, until she got the call from Hollywood to go out there and test for the part of Lisa Douglas. And the rest they say, is television history right there.
Fresh air!
Times Square!
That show was so dumb. The country people had southern accents. Every once in a while I get the theme song stuck in my head and it drives me crazy.
@@LadyCaroline123 It was dumb, but it was absolutely hilarious just the same!
@@Lisa-di1wi Interesting information about Eddie Albert. (I have a crush on him!)
Amazing to see how well dressed everyone was back then. Now nobody cares.
"Now nobody cares." Actually those casual clothes do not come cheap.
I was 4 months old ! Born in Passaic, New Jersey. . .
All of those people were actually happy! They liked what they did and where they lived - and they didn't have loads of money and they were genuinely happy! Lessons to be learned here! (Alas, the happy people and the happy neighborhoods got pushed out for more expensive high rise residentials... that now sit half empty and unhappy.)
I was 8 in 1961…… I loved it when I was a child……. Being an adult sucks, especially today…….👎👎👎👎
At least you made it this far. Count your blessings.
consider the alternative
@@land7776 I prefer to never have been born in this horrible world….ECCLESIASTIC 4:3… better is he that never existed, so he doesn’t have to see what’s under the sun…✝️✝️✝️
@@RafaelSoltren then you have a choice
Good video. I grew up in the Bronx in the 60s and 70s. Nothing has changed really, people did then what they do now, the difference is a far more open society now where everything is talked about openly.
Nothing has changed? Baloney! I'm a Bronxite born and raised. Fox Street off Intervale, then Valentine Ave off Fordham, and finally Pelham Parkway. All the neighborhoods I lived in are now shot to hell. Garbage on the sidewalk, graffiti all over the buildings, kids fighting in the street, people dressed like slobs. The Bronx was once a great place to raise a family. Not anymore.
@@liamsandal6360 I stand by my comment. Human behavior has always been what it is now. Btw was there garbage in the streets of Holcomb, Kansas in 1959, how about Lincoln, Nebraska in 1958, or Bay Village, Ohio in 1954? I could go on but they make my point. You know these dates, places and what happened
@@imetaboyiusedtoknow8308 I understand what you are saying, but people had more respect for themselves and for others years ago. No, it wasn't all rosy, but no matter the ethnicity, people were in better shape, communicated more clearly, and treated their bodies, homes and neighborhoods with much more respect. It's not even close. In each of the neighborhoods I grew up in, you knew your neighbors and they knew you. People sat out on the stoop together and socialized. There was a sense of community, of family. These qualities make a neighborhood. Now, it's all gone.
What everyone should notice in this video is that there are hardly any obese people to be seen! For God's sake, everybody, if you want to live to a ripe old age, change your diet! It is the ultraprocessed food people are consuming that is causing people to be overweight! This results in all kinds of health problems leading to an early death! Start eating better, everybody! Eat whole fruits and vegetables, avoid fast food as much as possible, and most important of all, don't touch anything that contains a lot of sugar! Sugar in large quantities is a deadly poison! I am now 71 years old, in quite good health because I eat properly, but people my age are dropping like flies! Most of these people were overweight, and as a result had health problems such as diabetes and high blood pressure! Regarding exercise, it goes without saying that a certain amount of exercise is necessary for good health, but you don't have to go to the extreme with this! You don't have to run a marathon every week! I am from Canada, and just like every Western country, there is a huge problem with obesity here! In countries like India and China, as soon as the people there consume western food, they end up becoming overweight as well! Look at the video carefully, and as I pointed out earlier, there are hardly any obese people to be seen! It is not just this video, any film from this era and earlier shows the same thing!
I really relate to your comment, including your last sentence. I'm older than you and I lived in Toronto (1975 -1995).
Agreed - though you are preaching to the choir here. Incidence of obese people LIVING in the greater NYC area is much lower than the national average.
Couple of big ones in the deli, and the lady on the boat was thick.
@@peterquennellnycI grew up in Queens in the 60's - 80's. When I went back in 2020, I walked and took the train everywhere. My fitbit said I was walking 10 miles a day. Add that with a bike, less fast food, candy, soda etc and I can see why I was such a skinny kid haha
@@Mhel2023 So typical here! Well done. We've had house guests who walked their feet off in the first 2 days and then had to sit around for day 3. :-)
I was born in 1962. I remember the 60's fairly well, the 70's even better.I would like to forget.
Is that actor Eddie Albert narrating?
If anyone would know about NYC it’s Oliver Wendell Douglas
Douglas, on introducing himself to Sam Drucker:
"The name's Douglas. Oliver Wendell Douglas."
Drucker: "Why, that's enough names for TWO fellers!"
I’m from Chicago but have both 1960 and 1961 mint condition Mickey Mantle cards. 😊
Very nice
The young woman at 33:30 was so beautiful with her happy attitude. So refreshing to see.
Well, she's reflects a lot of privilege. Not that people like that can't be genuine, but she seemed to me very primed for the camera. And not too aware of the real world, honestly.
That young woman is probably in her early eighties now.
@@MichaelWarchol She seemed like she was about 17, until she would grin impishly - then she'd look 14. So I'm guessing she was born about 1946, and maybe she's 78 today. Still grinning impishly.
My father is still alive at 91.
@39:01 "indefatiguable" [tireless]
It's always fune to look back, but now is always better.
Nope, now has degenerated in many ways from this time shown.
William Platt, the architect was born in 1897 and died in 1984 at 87.
Goodbye old New York