1992 and 2001
New York in its transitional decade
There was a rapid transition in New York from the crime-ridden strife and Ghostbusters of the 1980s to the coffee shops, flowers and devils wearing Prada of the 2000s, as the city’s fortunes turned around and the crime wave was defeated. My own memories from 1992 include Central Park being off-limits even during the day, every subway car fully covered in graffiti, and an awful lot of noise around the clock. By my return in 2001 the New York of Friends and Sex in the City was very much in evidence, an incredible change in just nine years, although for me at the time it was nearly half my life.
My first New York experience took place for a week in Easter 1992. We stayed for a week on 9th Avenue 57th Street at a dump of a Days Inn, and saw as many of the famous sights as we could, starting at the top of the list and working our way down. I returned for a couple of nights in June 2001, staying in the Upper West Side at the American Youth Hostel on 103rd and Amsterdam, and another hostel nearby called Jazz On the Park. I spent most of the time marching the canyon-like streets seeing what I could see, and generally enjoying the atmosphere of the city. As I was completely skint, the only tourist attractions I went inside were the Empire State Building and the World Trade Center. Both trips were pre-digital, but I think the grimy quality of the photos adds to atmosphere of the time.
Just before they docked at Ellis Island, newcomers to the United States would sail past Lady Liberty, who back then might not have been quite so green. The enduring symbol of New York it has appeared in many films, my personal favourite being Ghostbusters II where she is brought to life and marches to the mainland. We only went up to her feet in ’92, but I didn’t go back in 2001 as I was short of time. While she has a smaller replica sister in Paris, New York has its own smaller replica of the Arc de Triomphe in Washington Square, which made for a fair swap.
Tourists arm their cameras on the approach to Liberty Island in 1992. I have a practically identical photo from my next visit in 2018.
The new immigrants to NYC wouldn’t have seen this as they sailed in, downtown New York as it looked in 1992. Many of the buildings in shot were built on reclaimed land, and all those to the left of the Twin Towers were built on earth from the excavation of the World Trade Center basement which was dumped in the Hudson. On the right of the picture the green steeple of 40 Wall Street can be seen.
The Empire State Building is probably New York’s most famous landmark, after the Statue of Liberty. Built in the depression years following the Wall Street crash of 1929, it was known as the Empty State Building for years due to a lack of tenants able to stump up the rent. The building was hit by a B-25 bomber in 1945 in thick fog, resulting in a number of deaths but no danger of the building collapsing. During the evacuation an elevator fell 75 floors with an operator inside, who miraculously survived as the air was compressed underneath the car in a piston effect.
Looking very pleased with myself to be visiting the Empire State Building at last. I first became aware of it from a birthday card featuring King Kong about to blow out the candle on an Empire State Building cake, and thought it was the most amazing thing ever.
Standing up on the 86th floor viewing deck looking south to the Twin Towers in 2001. Fenced in since 1947, I remembered seeing a large net hanging over the street in 1992 which I figured was for catching jumpers, but may just have to catch renovation dropped objects. The 102nd floor observatory was closed to the public for several years around 2001, unfortunately I have not had an opportunity to visit it.
Looking north from the top of the Empire State Building in 1992 up to Central Park and the Rockefeller Center, the great slab in the centre left. Dead centre is 500 Fifth Avenue, a sort of mini-Empire State Building and designed by the same architect house.
Closer view of Central Park in 1992, with the Jacqui Kennedy reservoir prominently visible.
To the northeast the Chrysler Building takes centre stage, with its shining stainless steel crown. The Pan Am building is on the left, with the airline having stopped flying only months earlier.
Closer view northeast including the white sloped roof of the Citigroup (formerly Citicorp) building. It was the first building to use a tuned mass damper system, effectively a great big weight in the roof space which shifted opposite to the building’s movement, making it more stable. Also, in a hush-hush operation soon after it was completed, emergency reinforcements were added under cover of darkness, following a student project pointing out that it could blow down if the wind came in diagonally instead of head on. Well spotted.
Northeast view in 2001, with the Pan Am signage having been replaced with MetLife to reflect the buildings owner since 1981. It took until 1993 for the signage to be replaced, following the collapse of Pan American Airways. The MetLife building is joined onto Grand Central, and all the trains running north go right underneath it. Also visible again is the beautiful art deco spire of the Chrysler Building.
Looking towards the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges. Both sides of the East River have been hugely built up in the thirty years since.
The view south towards lower Manhattan and the Twin Towers, in 1992. In the close foreground the wedge shaped Flatiron Building can be seen with the light hitting it. It was one of the first skyscrapers to be constructed in New York, in 1902.
Closer view of lower Manhattan from the Empire State Building in 1992. The shorter building across the base of both Twin Towers is 7 World Trade Center, opened only five years earlier at that point.
30 Rockefeller Plaza as seen in 1992. It was originally named the RCA Building, but in 1988 its name was changed to the GE building, as it was during my first visit. In 2014 another name change saw it christened the Comcast Building.
I stand at the corner of Bryant Park in 2001, with the Chrysler Building to the east in the distance, almost obscured by a traffic light. It would now be fully obscured from this angle by One Vanderbilt.
A better shot of me on Park Avenue, one of the more landscaped Avenues in the city. The MetLife Building stands blotting out the sky directly behind me, and the Waldorf Astoria Hotel can be seen on the left of the photo, with the green pointy roof. Note also the typical New York cab heading away.
Our Gray Line tour bus operator proudly told us in 1992 that this was the largest TV screen in the world, on 1540 Broadway in Times Square. At 10 x 20 metres it was certainly big, and not in fact a TV but a mechanical dot-matrix screen of 84,000 individually rotating cubes in red, white, blue and green.
Another 1992 tour took us around Harlem, including sitting in on a gospel service, with an incredible choir.
I often try to get a spot of greenery in a photo which would otherwise be all steel and concrete, this is the view I got after getting off at the wrong subway stop for the World Trade Center in 2001. This visit was less than three months before the terrorist attacks of September 11th, with my first visit being about 11 months before the car bomb of 1993. I was particularly impressed with its sheer wall form rising 413 metres above my head without setbacks. I sat for a while in the sun on the concourse with a Diet Coke gazing up at the towers, before paying my 13 bucks (student rate) and getting in the lift. The décor was still very 1970s inside.
View to the north in 1992 from one of the 107th floor windows of the south tower, looking up Manhattan. The Empire State Building is visible, together with the white roof of the Citicorp Center on its right, and the black slab of One Penn Plaza on its left. The distinctive trapezoidal shape of the roof of 7 WTC can be seen in the foreground. As can I!
Looking down to street level from the 107th floor viewing deck, with the bulk of 7 WTC to the north and the north Twin Tower on the left. I have never been able to figure out what the red object is, a ship’s anchor?
I stand on the roof of the south tower in 2001, with the top of the north tower behind me. I’m on a raised walkway which was a good twenty feet from the edge, with the additional deterrent to BASE jumpers of an electric fence on the roof itself. There was a helipad in the centre of the roof as featured in Limp Bizkit’s “Rollin’” music video. I stood around for a good half hour taking in the view from all sides and watching helicopters fly around below me, before going down the escalator to the lifts on level 107, never to return.
Created 2003 | Updated 2023
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