New York One Million Images

I love New York! The city, the sights and the sounds, what is not to love? I am also a lover of photography and was incredibly excited to hear that almost a million images of the city are now available online.

Image from DPW

Yesterday, theNY Department of Records announced the opening of the  New York City Municipal Archives Online Gallery. The Online Gallery provides access to over
870,000 items digitized from the Municipal Archives’ collections, including
photographs, and maps, among other items.

The project was four years in the making and the available images were culled from over 2.2 million images that date as far back as the 1880’s. Everything you can imagine, from bridges, to neighborhoods, to crime photos, to bread lines, to images of out of work people sleeping in parks are here offering an unprecedented look at the stunning and sometimes not so stunning city of New York.

Image from DPW

Most of the images were taken by anonymous city employees, including photographers from the Department of Bridges and Plants and NYPD detectives. The project is ongoing and images will continue to be uploaded but according to reports financial and technological constraints might hinder the access to some of the images.

Currently the demand for access to the site is overwhelming, I tried for three hours and never actually accessed the images. Apparently the server was overloaded. No matter, there is always another day.

Enjoy perusing the images,  if you get online do come back and tell me about your favorite finds.

I hope you are having a great week!