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Park Avenue: 1957

January 23, 1957. "425 Park Avenue From northwest." Going up down the street: The Seagram Building. Safety negative by Gottscho-Schleisner. View full size.

January 23, 1957. "425 Park Avenue From northwest." Going up down the street: The Seagram Building. Safety negative by Gottscho-Schleisner. View full size.

 

On Shorpy:
Today’s Top 5

Old New York

Old New York
Submitted by Anonymous Tipster on Mon, 09/21/2009 - 10:15am.

Ahhh, good old 1957 New York. Still home to the Cramdens, the Mertzes, the Ricardos, and the Dodgers.

Also home of the Sharks and the Jets, of West Side Story
fame, and a young up and commer named John Gotti!

+53

Below is the same perspective taken in April of 2010. Much is the same, but several buildings have been added to Park since 1957. The Waldorf=Astoria still reigns on Park as the monarch of New York City hotels and can still be seen in the modern view (a stay there is unforgettable).

re: The Best of Everything

Here's Hope Lange on Park Avenue arriving for her first day of work in the Seagram Building (out of shot to the right) in the opening scenes of 1959's The Best of Everything. Don't get your hopes (ahem) up; the on-location New York footage is beautiful in Cinemascope, including aerial footage accompanied by Johnny Mathis during the opening credits, but disappointingly brief. Most of the film was shot on soundstages in Hollywood. There are several dramatic shots of the building, though, plus other NY street scenes with the cars, the clothes and all that other good stuff.

Visions Of New York

One person sees a scene from "Pillow Talk." Another - specifically me - sees the title sequence and opening scenes from "North By Northwest" - the calm before all of the sinister doings. Oddly enough though, most of the sinister stuff occurs not in the cities - New York and Chicago - but in rural areas like the Long Island estate, the corn field near Chicago and Mount Rushmore. The cities are safe. It's being in the countryside that will kill you.

Where are they?

I keep expecting Rock Hudson and Doris Day to step out of a building (from "Pillow Talk"). What a lovely shot. Everything is so CLEAN!

55 Chevy

The car in the foreground is a 1955 Chevrolet 210 4-door sedan -- I own exactly the same. Nice picture!

Circa 1959

Was my first visit to the Four Seasons bar. What an elegant place! The Seagram Building itself made quite an impression, too. It and Lever House seemed like they had been dropped from another planet. Such a change from those sooty, clam-colored mausoleums that had been the fashion in skyscrapers. It has aged remarkably well.

It's photos like this

that make me so thankful for your wonderful site. I've never visited a big city before, so I always get a bit giddy when I find photos that really make me feel like I'm there. Coupled with the fact this one is from 1957, I'm walking on sunshine. Thanks Dave!

Elegance

Directly behind the Seagram Building, the tall profile of the Waldorf-Astoria, still New York City's most quietly elegant big hotel. And right behind the ornate building straddling Park Avenue in the distance would be Grand Central Terminal, one of those crossroads of the world where, if you stood there long enough, you would probably see almost everyone you ever knew. One of my favorite six- or seven-block stretches of Midtown.

Leasehold improvement ....

My purchases of Seagram's 83 was funding the next floor.

Old New York

How orderly everything seems to be on Park Avenue.
Too bad it's no longer 1957.

What's so special?

I've got to say as someone who used to work near the Seagram Building, I can never see what the heck is so special about it. It always simply struck me as the first of those awful soulless glass boxes which diminished the New Yorkness of New York. Give me an Art Deco tower anyday!!

The Best of Everything

The Seagram Building has always been a personal favorite. The Four Seasons is as elegant as the day it opened in 1959.

Old New York

Ahhh, good old 1957 New York. Still home to the Cramdens, the Mertzes, the Ricardos, and the Dodgers.

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