New York, 1912. "New Chelsea Piers on the Hudson." Feast your eyes on this veritable visual smorgasbord. 8x10 inch glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size.

1958. "Harundale Mall, Glen Burnie, Maryland. Interior view." The first enclosed shopping center on the East Coast. Nirenstein Collection print. View full size.

Auckland, New Zealand, 1902. "Dexter & Crozier, cycle importers, Victoria Street East." Glass negative by James Hutchings Kinnear. View full size.

April 1923. Washington, D.C., or vicinity. "Marathon dancers." Participants in a pop culture fad that lasted well into the 1930s; woman on the right holds a Baltimore newspaper clipping with the headline DANCERS BREAK WORLD RECORD AND DISAPPEAR. Harris & Ewing glass negative. View full size.

1957. "Robert and Norma Norton of Houston, Texas, with their family, illustrating life before and after having the house air-conditioned. Includes photos of the family at a drive-in restaurant having cool air piped into their car" -- a Cadillac sedan that already has air conditioning. Photo by Jim Hansen for the Look magazine article "How the Nortons Beat the Heat." View full size.

Circa 1918. "Portland, Maine. Drying fishing nets." 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size.

1940. "L. Bamberger & Co., Newark, New Jersey. Quality Dress Salon. Interior view. Raymond Loewy Corp., architect." Eljay Photo Service. View full size.

New York circa 1910, somewhere on the Lower East Side. "Bread for the poor." 5x7 glass negative, George Grantham Bain Collection. View full size.

November 1908. "Chester, S.C. -- Springstein Mills. Archie Love. Said (after hesitating), 'I am 14 years old.' Doesn't look it. Been in mill three years. Worked nights five months at the start." Photo by Lewis Wickes Hine. View full size.

1910. "Cycle shop interior. Christchurch, New Zealand." B.S.A. stood for Birmingham Small Arms. Photo by Steffano Francis Webb. View full size.

Circa 1907. "West portal, Hoosac Tunnel, North Adams, Massachusetts." 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size.

This is the city: Los Angeles, California. It was a warm August evening in city; we were working the tourist detail and wound up heading toward City Hall. The car is a '59 Rambler, the driver my brother-in-law Frank. My name's tterrace; I'm a kid.

I'd flown in on a turbo-prop job from San Francisco. It was my first flight and my first trip anywhere by myself. I'd just turned 15. I would have gotten there sooner, but a couple weeks earlier my father had gotten me almost all the way to SFO when I found I didn't have my plane ticket, so we had to turn back. Nobody was happy about that.

My Kodak Brownie Starmite was loaded with Ektachrome when I snapped this shot on some street somewhere or other; some local might be able to fill in the blanks on that one. Later, we hit the usual places: Chinatown, Olvera Street, Union Station. Disneyland would be for another day. With any luck, I wouldn't die of excitement before then. View full size.

      The Ege family dwelling, which had tangential connections to General Lafayette, George Washington and Edgar Allan Poe.

April 1865. Richmond, Virginia. "The Old Stone House -- so-called 'Washington's headquarters,' 1916 East Main Street." Wet plate glass negative. View full size.

March 31, 1922. "H.G. Corcoran of Washington, D.C., needs an aerial for his radio outfit. His receiving wire is connected to the wire springs of his bed, which take the place of an aerial." Harris & Ewing Collection glass negative. View full size.

Washington, D.C., circa 1920. "Curb work -- car stop on 14th Street N.W." Streetcar infrastructure. Harris & Ewing glass negative. View full size.