The Hotel Astor on Times Square circa 1916. Note roof garden and, at lower right, the elaborate marquee for the film "Civilization." View full size. (George Grantham Bain Collection.) The building, at 1515 Broadway and West 44th Street, was demolished in 1967 and replaced by, in the words of one architecture critic, a "hideous tall office tower," 1 Astor Plaza, whose crownlike top is a familiar sight from across the Hudson River in New Jersey.

The Blue Bell diner at 619 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington. June 1948. View full size | Even larger | Read the menu. The Blue Bell had an upscale cousin on 10th Street, the Waffle Shop. Photograph by Theodor Horydczak.

October 1942. Experimental staff at the North American Aviation plant in Ingle- wood, Calif., observing wind tunnel tests on a model of the B-25 ("Billy Mitchell") bomber. View full size. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Alfred Palmer.

A homemade swimming pool for steelworkers' children in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Photograph by Arthur Rothstein, July, 1938. View full size.

A pool hall in Shasta County, California. Photograph by Russell Lee, 1940. View full size.

The American minstrel performer Japanese Tommy, aka Thomas Dilward, circa 1860. Brady-Handy Photograph Collection. View large as life.

"See what Prince will do for me." Prince Albert, Ida Cuthbertson's "famous educated horse." Brown Studio, Riverside, circa 1909. View full size.