1966 - April 8 - Times Square - N.Y.C.
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- Опубликовано: 1 апр 2022
- An old silent home-movie film of Times Square from 1966. The film was quite worn, but we did what we could and posted it here anyway. How much has it changed?
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I was sixteen in 1969 and just got my drivers license. I drove with two other guys from Halifax, Nova Scotia down to New York City. We stayed at the Times Square Motor Inn. Spent four days in the Big Apple and saw all the sights (Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, United Nations Building, Madison Square Garden, Radio City Music Hall "The Rockettes!!!" etc.) We walked and walked all over the place. I was hoping to see the Yankees play but they were on the road. So we went out to Shea Stadium to see the Mets. It was a Saturday afternoon and Little League Day at Shea so all the kids that attended the game (around 30,000) were wearing their little league uniforms. The Mets played the Astros and won the game 4-0. Cleon Jones hit a two-run homer and Tom Seaver pitched a two-hitter gem. Of course that was the year the Mets went on to win the World Series. It was a wonderful trip with many great memories. 😊
cool story
Thank you for sharing.
The GOAT-Tom Seaver
The Amazin' Mets!
Haligonian here.
I was 5 weeks old when this was filmed. In some ways it is hard to believe that this was shot during my lifetime. Still, I would rather live in that lost world than the trashcan we live in now.
I would be born 5 months after this.
I would be born 2 years after this!
@@jaminova_1969 Back when 4 out of 5 doctors recommended Lucky Strikes. Good times.
I was just over 4 weeks old at that point. 😊
I was born 3 weeks before this 🙂
We left NY in 1966, when I was 6. We arrived in Miami on 8-1-66--just outside of Coconut Grove and Biscayne Bay. What a paradise--swimming with fish and manatees, flying kites, riding bikes, climbing trees, playing ball, etc.
"Battle of the Bulge" premiered in December of 1965. Two months earlier, in October of 1965, Warren Spahn appeared in his last Major League Baseball game for the SF Giants. Warren Spahn fought in the Battle of the Bulge.
What I wouldn’t have given to have visited the record stores and departments during this period.
Downstairs Records...YES!✌✌
Colony Records was another hip place for records back then
@@jennifersman7990 It was at the ground floor of the famous Brill building where so many 60's hit were written. They had records but their sheet music selection was the best!!
Why...whats the big deal?
@@hewitc 1619 Broadway at 49th Street just north of Times Square.🎵🍎😎
I was quite young at that time, but I resided in Manhattan, so watching videos like this is always enjoyable for me. Many thanks for posting!
April 8 was Good Friday in 1966. We were still living in South Bend at the time , but would move to New Jersey almost exactly one year later. Then I became immersed in the city's subway system. There used to be a Howard Johnson restaurant by Rockefeller Center that I remember.
The last day of my Dad’s 40’s. He was born 108 years ago.
I've been visiting NYC many times since 1967 and this is the Times Square I prefer vs. today with all the crowds, vaping, selfies and vendors. You can barely breathe walking through the crowd, especially in the summer.
I agree and I would rather see the traffic of then when it had real cars and buses instead of today when it looks like toys. I am a baby boomer who grew up in NYC during the Mad Men era.
Did you ever go to the White House bar in Hell’s Kitchen?
Agreed. I don't mind a crowd so long as it is moving along, but there are too many reasons to stand still in Times Square anymore. What I really, really dislike about Times Square these days is the fake Elmos, the super heroes, the fake Mickey Mouses, all vying to be photographed with you.
I was born and raised in brooklyn,I feel your pain, peace
Yeah true, but the 70s Times Square was a shite hole.
I wish I could teleport to this era and make my way to a beauty salon or wig shop. This is a hairdresser’s dream era! Can’t imagine the variety of styles they had.
Look! No cellphones.
One of the key elements to a non-cohesive society.
I can't look right now. I'm on my phone.
well put.
Yeah, and we would be even more cohesive if we got rid of the cars and go back to the horse and buggy . . .
@@tuberhubris4154 change is inevitable.
Older population is the first thing I noticed. And let’s face it folks a slower paced world.
Older slower yes. Maybe because there wasn’t the rampant Greed we have today?
1950-90. That was this Country’s greatest era post WWIl. I was 13 in 66
Grewup in Miami
Perfect choice of music for this video make you feel like right there !
I was 6 days old when this was filmed. Glad to see this is in color!
@1:48- LOL - One juvenile digging in the crack of his pants and the other in the Beatles boots flipping off the camera man. Welcome to NYC 1966 style.
Little did they know at the time, their antics are immortalized worldwide almost 60 years later.
whata a little jerk...must have been going to the movies...he was just picking his seat!!!
😂😂😂I'm looking like, man so much has changed and then the elite cam flip off came into play and I'm like maybe not so much haha
That gesture was so much more offensive back then than it is today.
I liked them... cheeky lads.
Have you seen the pics of the college students on top of the roof at Geo. Wash. Univ. sunbathing in the 1930s and they are giving the finger to the cameraman?
Great jazz music !👍
Love seeing the movie marquee’s back then
This was fun. I moved there a year later. I had no idea that Radio Shack went back that far.
NYC is just incredible! The energy there is like no other place on Earth.
Great video! I graduated High School 2 1/2 months later, on 6/26/66.
Drafted?
@@jamesmack3314 He probably wasn't drafted. If the government sent you a draft notice you just ignored it if you did not want to go. There was nearly 500,000 draft avoiders during the Vietnam War era and few were ever prosecuted. Its like jury duty notices, never show up the first time and don't except registered mail. Had a number jury notices and I never show. They don't won't me on jury anyways because everybody gets an innocent vote from me.
@@vanillaexplosion99 I like the jury duty analogy, but I thought it was a little harder to just ignore a draft notice than a jury duty notice. I’ve definitely tossed a few of the notices away.
@@jamesmack3314 No! I attended college. When I graduated, my buck right knee got me a deferment.
@@donaldvisconti5483 how fortunate…..
I own a 68 Cadillac and it's very vintage, let alone it hasn't been even built when this was filmed. Quite amazing
1:27 The Horn and Hardart Automat, Yay! 2:28 The Allied Chemical building, my father worked for Allied. I was 15 in April of '66 and I while it wasn't in Manhattan, I went to the Murray the K's Easter Show at the Brooklyn Fox. It featured, Joe Tex, the Young Rascals, Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels, Jay & the Americans, Little Anthony & the Imperials, Deon Jackson, the Shangri-Las, Patti LaBelle & the Bluebells, the Gentrys, the Royalettes.
Was it better back then, it was to me! I'm 74, have a pretty good life and I'm in good health but I'd give up any years that I have left to go back and relive the 1960's!
Oh yeah it was my best time too! I’d go with you in a minute!!✌️
I was almost exactly a year away from being born. I still watch the old Batman TV series reruns and these are the kinda shots of "Gotham City" you'd see during the opening.
Omg, it’s amazing that we’re able to see this. I was only 2yrs old
I was 1 year old ☀️🪺🐦
Minimum Wage was $1.40/hr and the subway fare in NYC 20 cents. and the Top TV shows were Bonanza, Lucy show, Andy Griffith Show, Gomer Pyle, and Batman
You get the sense your looking at a regular city with regular people living it,not some Disneyland for tourists and home for billionaires
NYC was fun back then.
And safer!
@@kevinmadden1645 Not really. Lots of prostitutes keeping those seedy hotels in business. And drugs. And porn theaters. If you think life was better then, you probably weren't there.
@@kevinmadden1645 Actually it wasn't. The crime rate in NYC has dropped every year in the last 25 years except for a blip during the pandemic when people lost their jobs. Did you see "Taxi Driver"? That was the 70's. Not as safe as today.
@@hewitcThis film was shot in 1966 NOT 1975. BIG DIFFERENCE!
From about 1945 to 1965, I think Time Square was at its best; the flavor was just right. It was authentic, still somewhat nice, yet still had that seedy urban element. From the early 70s to mid 90s, the seedy element had gone too far. Now the commercial sterilization has gone too far. What happened to well-balanced authenticity? Bourgeois corporate money continues to kill the flavor.
No. 1920-1953. @@UnitTrace
It was still great when I was a teenager in the mid late 70s had a nice element of sleaze but I never had any issues and I was around that area a lot now it’s just completely gentrified and overdeveloped
New York has a long history of constant renewal. Parts of the city that were terrible slums are now trendy. Notice how many of the buildings in this film are less than 10 stories tall. Most or all of them have been replaced by much larger, modern structures. If this kind of evolution doesn't happen, a city dies.
Great comment. I'm fascinated by the arguments of times Square as a vile cesspool vs times Square as Disneyland, which is better and which is worse and why. I can see arguments on both sides
@@XxowendanxX As a resident in that period, it was exciting to live when Times Square was "dangerous". Hookers. strippers, drugs, pawn shops etc. Today it is sterile and too safe. FOX News demonizes it but it is their HQ. they are full of BS.
This is fabulous - thank you for sharing. Would've been right before the smut moved in...
I remember "The Silencers" with Dean Martin. Good Movie!
Yes
It amazes me how the New York (notably, Manhattan) of the sixties seemed so much more authentic and livable (economically) than today.
As an aside, to those noting that “everyone in this video is long dead, etc.,” please realize that this was 1966. Many of the young folks seen in this video are Baby Boomers and Silent Generation-era people. Many are very much alive in 2024.
I am. I worked there summer of 1967 and went there for fun regularly from suburbia. Much more interesting than the burbs. You had to be careful and "smart" but it was worth it. Never mugged my whole life. FOX puts it down for political reasons. They have their headquarters there and the Murdochs love it.
I am now 65 and grew up in Jersey City, NJ. Went into Manhattan & the other boroughs frequently then to see Mets, Rockefeller Center, Etc.
More livable? I doubt it. Back then new yorkers subsisted on processed junk like crisco, pop tarts, TV dinners, skimilk, margarine etc. Kudos to Millenials bringing back REAL foods 👏!!!
I love the history of my city
Even with the traffic,Times Square looks infinitely more appealing back in 1966 then the garish hell hole it is today.
It truly has become a snake pit. With smell of marijuana seemingly everwhere. Disgusting.
Hell hole....today? Back in those good 'ol days it was a cesspool of porn, crime, and prostitution. Not that I'm too crazy of the Disneyland that it has now become, but get real.
This is a bizarre comment. The people who (I guess) believe that New York is worse than this either have never visited or never lived in the city. This reads like someone who watches a lot of Fox “News” and believes all the incoherent nonsense that Trump spews.
The funny thing is Fox “News” is headquartered in Manhattan and if I’m not mistaken it is the maybe second most visited place in the U.S. after probably Disney in Orlando. Didn’t realize so many people desire to visit a “garish hell hole”.
I won't say that crime wasn't bad back then. But there's no way I am going to that city again nowadays. I'd feel like I was in a third world country.
NYC has 65 million visitors a year lately, we will Not miss You
Love the cars.
Yeah me too they were built to last not like today's trash that keeps shrinking 🤢
@@freespirit21newyork BULL. They were made of steel, and since they weren't hot-dip Galvanized, they were rust buckets. They also didn't have three-point seatbelts, airbags, or modern crumple zones. Crash Deaths/year topped out at over 50,000, at some point in the 1960s/1970s. These days, it's down to about 30,000, and that's counting motorcycle, bicycle, and pedestrian Deaths, in a Nation with at least one third more population.
@@drpoundsign. Jay Leno did an excellent editorial in Motor Trend magazine years ago about how modern cars are way superior.
Yes, it's Times Square, but not ONE Broadway show is in evidence! (The "My Fair Lady" seen here is the film version.) While it's true most Broadway theaters are on the side streets next to Times Square, you would think you'd see a billboard for a show or at least SOMEthing. Interesting from this film to see Times Square without the TKTS booth; it didn't come in to play until 1973.
*Beautiful wide-open avenues. No stupid planters or annoying concrete barriers blocking lanes or ridiculous bike lanes causing manufactured artificial congestion.*
😂 you’re very observant! I’ve never been to New York (didn’t want to) but you should see the Small towns from this era. Beautiful old homes large oak trees not too much traffic. I guess all that’s gone forever.😢✌️
Thanks for uploading these. I love them all
Very nice film transfer! There are a lot of lost memories from sh**ty transfers where the master stock is thrown out.
The thing I notice here and in other films and photos of big cities at that time is the taxis. The stereotype is of the old Checker cabs, but you see almost none of them. Most of the cabs seem to be Chevies, Fords, and Plymouths.
According to Wikipedia, on the day this video was shot i.e 8th April 1966, Leonid Brezhnev was elected unanimously as the party leader of communist party of Soviet Union. Time magazine released one of its most controversial cover "Is god dead?" and Two boys, aged 13 and 12, who ran away from their homes in North Carolina, sneaked on to a railroad box car and then found themselves locked inside for the next 13 days. The sealed car was carrying a cargo of nearly empty beer bottles to the Schlitz Brewing Company in Wisconsin, and for nearly two weeks, they survived by drinking small amounts of stale beer, until April 21, when they arrived in Milwaukee and workmen at the brewing company heard their cries for help
LOL at the beer-story! Thanks for sharing...I too usually heat to Wikipedia when I see a dated-vid like this to see what was going on that day. Now off to research those poor beer-swillers.
That is a very cool story two weeks is a long time without food man wonder where they are today
What?!? I thought the "God is Dead" story was in 1969.
Wow!!! What a story of those boys!!
There was an arcade around there, I think it was next to a place called The Majestic Dance Hall. It is often confused with he arcade one 42nd, but the one I am remembering was on 45th or 46th.
The Brooklyn salute!!!!
Ppl don’t work today …so many ppl of all ages in time square
Pretty sure people are working really really hard in Manhattan right now.😂 How did you even get this preposterous idea? Rent was hella more controlled AND affordable in Manhattan in the 50s and 60s. It's quite the opposite now... in the extreme. Everyone is hustling in Manhattan including the tourists. Everyone's hustling to get the most out of their money these days. No one is 'ppl dont work today', trust me.
Great video btw. Nice to see a window back in time to my former stomping grounds. Love those two kids just chillin' and then flipping off the camera.
Great video thank's 👍
That's cool 2 months before I was born that video was made👶
This is 6 months before I was born, in East Harlem...
Times Square was looking pretty good and as you can see, a hit with the youngsters playing hooky...
Unless it was Easter recess...😆
I was almost a year old 10 months old to be exact
By the end of the summer we move from Queens over to Bergen County North Jersey...difference was like NIGHT and DAY 😁
Can you say how?
Wow that kid at 2:00 giving the Hawaiian salute would never expect that back then in the 60’s😮
Why is that so shocking? I was born in NYC and 12 years old in 1966... we even said the "F" word.
I knew people that lived in the 1940s ( my late dad and uncle) and people did flip the finger but it was considered very obscene.
That kid must be in his late 60s or early 70s now if he's still alive.
Dean Martin as Matt Helm in "The Silencers"
They don't make movies like that anymore.
They’re just as bad now, just more expensive.
Checker cabs. Miraculously, I survived many rides on those fold-up seats back in those days.
Let’s also note this was just before Vietnam war threw us into chaos, around 1967-68 folks realized it was a quagmire.
Within a couple years guys were coming back with a nasty drug habit and crime spiked.
Unintended consequences indeed.
It's cool seeing what NYC was like when I was 3.. not much has changed except the cars have different shapes and people have tiny televisions in their pockets but besides that not much has changed because we're too close to it it takes about 100 to 150 years to really see a difference. And humans then we'll have a different perspective than we do now.
Between 1960 and 1970, NYC went from a relatively safe, clean place to a drug, crime infested pit. Could it have had something to do with all the social upheaval of the late 60’s?
People waxing poetic about the Times Square of 1966 probably never went there during that era. You can't really tell from grainy videos like this how seedy it was. I used to walk through Manhattan a lot in the 70's and there were plenty of drug addicts, homeless, pimps and prostitutes, litter, gross smells and you name it back then. There were also plenty of slums in Manhattan back then, something which is rare in Manhattan nowadays. As garish and touristy Times Square is nowadays, it is infinitely preferable to the dump from back then. And yes, it was indeed a dump.
BIG difference between the mid-1960s and the 1970s.
Why I find interesting is the remnant of the 1950's with so many men wearing hats. I think that 1966 was the transition year between the old world and the new and 1967 was when the hippie era-pre 1970's kicked in.
@@KevinBalch-dt8ot Exaclty! You beat me to it. John's comment is silly. Comments on 66, then compares to to the 70's. I was there both times, as a five year old in the mid-60's and a ten year old in 70/71. I remember my parents and older brother and sister talking about how noticeable the difference was. But it was nothing compared to what was to come. When I was living and working there in the 80s TSq was a hellscape. Awful.
Classic old film of Times Square in 1966
I was 7 now 65..most of the adults are either passed away or very old.
I was 10 months old then
I was born June, 12 1966 on a Sunday....at 450 pm.... fact's!! Currently holding at 57 year's as of this writing....and seconds and minute's hour's day's months LoL 😆 Hahahahaha 🤪
I was born on MAY DAY in the Great 58!
Meanwhile only a few blocks south old Penn Station lay in ruins waiting to be unceremoniously carted off to a Jersey landfill.
I’m walkin’ here… I’m walkin’ here!..
I was two days shy to be one hundred days old😁😁
I miss Howard Johnsons!
Amazing NYC
@1:55 😂😂😂 I'm looking like, man so much has changed and then the elite cam flip off came into play and then I'm like well maybe not so much haha
That was cool 😎
Nice
This 8mm reel’s are very interesting to watch here even though I wasn’t even born yet since this footage was shot back in the 60’s because this was during the time when construction on The World Trade Center was in motion & today all of those businesses that were seen in this reel are no longer around since many of the structures which had them had long ago been demolished.
The last really great year of city life. Clean and safe. Downhill ever since.
It's a trip how different Father Duffy Square looks now. I personally think Times Sq. is better now with Broadway blocked off as a walk-street.
I was born 7 days after😊
1:56 True New Yorker.
The was three months after the city's crippling transit strike, and six month after the World's Fair closed (1964-1965).
And the great blackout of 1965 I remember that as a kid living in Brooklyn
@@jamesmack3314 The Obstetrics services of NYC Hospitals were completely Overwhelmed-Nine months later! The 1977 blackout, in contrast; spawned looting and riots. Future rappers got their boomboxes and turntables via the "five finger discount."
They were making WAR-not LOVE-by then.
1:58 "Welcome to New York, stranger."
Had those phony souvenir stores-- it was allowing that sort of thing that was the first signs of the decline of Times Square in that era.
And there it is folks. A very early video of a young Howard Stern at 2:00.
All those people are long dead. The cars are junked and the buildings have all crumbled slowly to the ground. Not a trace of '66 remains, just a fog of moldy memories.
Some of the young people are probably still alive?
Are you from a small town where the average life expectancy is age 67....
And this film! BTW, my parents are still alive as am I! The subway still exists and many of the buildings are there, with anew facade!
who wants to tell him? still here
No scaffolding!
Allied Chemical tower before it was covered with billboards - it’s still there today you just can’t see it anymore
I was three when that film was made.
❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
This was shot right before Times Square and much of New York began to rapidly decline.
As a kid I lived in the Bronx until 1974. The city was safe, but during the mid 70s and through the 80s NYC was a war zone. MY parents had enough and we moved to the southwest part the U.S. During the 90s we went back when Giuliani was mayor and NYC was relatively safe. However the WOKE mayor's current and previous have ruined
NYC. The city is now cesspool ILL never go back.
Don't worry triple tap you'll be back. Just listen to Liza Minnelli song "I happen to like New York"
I think New York will somehow survive you not visiting. Giuliani was not that great as a mayor. I think a certain type of person has to tell themselves that New York is terrible. Just like they do with cities especially in the north and west because they have to reinforce their world view. What’s funny is that “cesspool” New York has a trillion dollar plus economy. Pretty good for a “cesspool”. I’m gonna leave the “WOKE” thing alone, from what I see very unsophisticated morons tend to use the term as shorthand for their prejudices. Hardly worth it.
@@BlackDoveNYCyou voted for biden
@@BlackDoveNYC Beautiful reply. Could not said it better myself.
I was still in the oven for another 20 days lol
I was 2 days old born in Boston
and the 12 year old kid who gives a smile and middle finger. Perfect New York
I don’t get it. People in the comments talk about how great it was back then, but when you look at reports, most people hated it. It was dangerous and violent and mafia ran a lot of stuff. Sounds pretty desperate to me.
mixed comments as usual if Giuliani was around in the 70's n 80's ..he would of shut shyt down ..all the bums that brag today how they got away with shit wouldn't say shit
The Past is always Romanticized... 50 years from today, people will glorify our tranquility, our love of each other and especially our peaceful co-existence.
@@user-ne3yw2cu6c
So true. I don’t know it’s annoying or just frustrating to read comments where “things were so great”. No they weren’t please stop lying to yourself.
4:09 Some Captain of Industry in a 1966 navy blue Cadillac limo! Classic.
Also love the movie marquees of Paul Newman and Dean Martin. Nice technique to pan across both.
Trivia - Times Square was formerly known as the British term “Longacre” until The NY Times moved their HQ here in 1904 - and advertising popped up all over the area.
I noticed that too. Also an Imperial at about 2:04.
That gave me a good laugh, but I shan't dignify it with a timestamp. My Dad called that "The Fickle Finger of Fate".
The FLYING Fickle Finger of Fate...from "Laugh-In." That was a GREAT show! Goldie Hawn got her start as the Go-Go Dancer. Your Dad probably remembers The Flying Burrito Brothers.
My parents were 18, 19 years old running around Manhattan! I spent a good portion of my youth in Times SQ commuting via Port Authority in the 70's & 80's and worked there for a couple of years. It was seedy & gritty. I didn't see any degenerates in the film, then again it was mid-day. TS was totally different after Mayor Guilianni brought in Disney / ABC/ ESPN and cleaned up the XXX movie shows and sex shops.
my old mans b day
Imagine spotting yourself or a family member in this footage.
I can
I looked up the weather for that day. The high temperature was 50 degrees. I noticed the temperature displayed on one of the signs was 48 degrees which was the temperature just after noon.
Now, if someone can make a spider-man movie based on this NYC wouldn't that be interesting?
basically, the Spiderman Marvel comics were in this era!
Where are Batman and Spider Man?
I remember visiting NYC in the mid-'90s when the subways STILL weren't air-conditioned.
Even with THAT, I continued to visit a friend in NYC 2-3 times a year from 1997-2011...
and never could understand why ANYBODY would want to live in a crowded, obnoxiously loud, dirty, smelly, MOSTLY UGLY DUMP like that... where people would scramble down and out of subterranean subway stations like rodent filth... and THEN you could watch ACTUAL RATS infesting the rails of the station you were at.
So…Where’s Andy Warhol? Or Jack Smith?
I was not born till 1967.
Wow how did they make a scrolling marquee back in those days
Very carefully.
Who noticed the kid flipping off the camera (2:00)?
6 months before my grand debut
Beautiful
Cool video, l wonder where Bonds the hugh clothing store was.?
East side of Broadway between 44th and 45th Streets.
There's a Bond's sign at 2:02.
I thought that was a Bonds trading place-LOL
hahaha at the kid flipping the bird at 2min