The Beginning Of A Skyscraper

The scene is an excavation site in New York City. A large group of workmen with picks and shovels are digging. Carts drawn by pairs of horses can be seen emerging from the smoke in the background.  Taken in the immense excavation for the foundation of the new Macy Building at the corner of Broadway and 34th Street, New York. An excellent study of modern American push and enterprise.

Camera, Robert K. Bonine.

Photographed January 18, 1902. Location: New York, N.Y.

Automobile Parade - 1900

 

This may be the first annual automobile parade, held on February 6, 1900, in downtown Manhattan. At least ten different makes and models are seen, including electric and steam powered machines. Only three years earlier, in 1896, Henry Ford, Charles Brady King, Alexander Winton and Ransom Eli Olds had each introduced their gasoline cars. In 1900, the first National Auto Show was held at Madison Square Garden and the favorites were the electrics and the steamers. In 1901, new oil fields in Texas made gasoline affordable. That same year, mass production techniques were introduced into car manufacturing. These two factors would prove to be key developments in the rapid growth of the American automobile industry.

Filmed by Thomas A. Edison

Delivering Newspapers

The film shows a group of about fifty pre-adolescent boys running and crowding around a one-horse paneled newspaper van that pulls up in the foreground of the picture. On the side of the van is a sign reading "New York World." As they gather around the rear of the vehicle, a fight breaks out between two of the boys. The film ends as the crowd forms around the two fighters.

Camera, G.W. "Billy" Bitzer, Arthur Marvin.

Photographed April 24, 1903.  Location:  Union Square, New York, N.Y.