Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone (UMEZ) Museum of the City of New York (MCNY) Large Scale Digitization Project

This was a seven month project to digitize 28,000 photographs. At the completion of the project, 39,000 photographs had been scanned at high resolution -- 140% of the goal.

The collections selected for this project contained images dating from the 1860s to the 1970s. They represented all of New York City but were concentrated on the borough of Manhattan, from South Ferry to Inwood. Their content ranges from professional architectural photography by Samuel Gottscho and the Wurts Brothers firm to street scenes by well-known artists such as Berenice Abbott and John Albok to workaday documentation found in postcards and record photographs collected primarily for their subject matter.

This project, in coordination with MCNY’s web program, will provide a worldwide audience with access to nearly 90,000 documentary photographs of New York City. Currently, these photographs can only be seen by researchers who make an appointment at the Museum on Fifth Avenue; moreover, images in some formats (such as negatives) cannot be readily viewed due to logistic and conservation reasons. In addition to providing visual access to the general public, the digital image surrogates of these photographs will help preserve the original objects in their fragile formats by greatly reducing the need to handle and consult them directly for research.

Images: Byron Brothers. Berenice Abbott

images are available for licensing from the Museum of the City of New York by visiting their website or callling (212)534-1672