Downtown B&W

The good folks at Anthology Film Archives just turned us on to a silent black-and-white, 16mm chunk of footage of "New York City--Downtown." It has been identified as the work of Lowell Bodger.

We see an empty urban landscape with only a few people walking. Few cars pass. The streets are cobblestoned--even Broadway at Astor, a desolate row of Automat, parking garage, upholstering and stationery shops. (Those buildings are gone and it's now Game Stop, AT&T, The Body Shop, Benetton.) There's Grace Church in the background as we look uptown.

film still

Nothing is hustling.

Take a right on Astor. Following a white-finned car going east, past Cooper Union, you catch a ghostly glimpse of the neon sign for the St. Mark's Baths up ahead.

But first let's stop for a slow pan of Astor Place and its Luncheonette. The square is quiet, empty. People walk very, very slowly. There are no skateboarders. There is no Cube. It looks like a forgotten part of town.

film still

The luncheonette is in a building that will be torn down to become a parking lot, which will be filled in with Gwathmey's big, undulating Green Monster.

film still

I've been curious about that lost building since I first saw it in Rudy Burckhardt's 1947 photo "Coca-Cola Goddess." By the time this undated film footage was taken, the goddess was gone. I've wondered if it might have been a newspaper office--other photos I've seen have trucks parked outside what looks like a loading dock, with those braced iron overhangs, but I've never figured it out.