Houses of Worship: 1903

Where are the flags? This must be a work day, so how come the flags aren't flying? Anyone know?

Something I've noticed about almost all pictures of NYC dating from the early 1900's. They all contain: at least one policeman, one streetsweeper, road construction. This one is batting a 1000.

I so enjoy Shorpy's variety of superb photographs, the clever titles/captions (Houses of Worship), and reader comments.

Here are two postcards of Trinity Church and/or Wall St. from my family's collection. The photo on the first one has a copyright of 1895 by. A. Loeffler, but was sent in 1906. The second one may be from 1912. Only the address could be written on the back of postcard until 1907.

Growing up in the '60s and '70s I spent a lot of time in Lower Manhattan. I must have seen this view in real life a hundred times. I always assumed that Trinity church was built out of black granite or basalt as it was absolutely black from several hundred years of coal burning in NYC. The building was steam cleaned in the late '90s and you can see now that it is built out of a cream colored sandstone. My friends and I nick named it the Iron Church because it resembled black painted iron.

[Several hundred years! Built when the Pilgrims landed in Brooklyn? - Dave]

My dad worked on Wall Street in the late 1950's just down from where this picture was taken. The statue of George Washington on the right still stands in front of the US Treasury building. I am pretty sure the hot dog cart is the same one I remember seeing.