Gotham

Over the great bridge, with the sunlight through the girders

making a constant flicker upon the moving cars, with the city rising up across the river in white heaps and sugar lumps all built with a wish out of non-olfactory money. The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first

wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world.

-- The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald

At the age of fifty, Samuel Gottscho (1875-1971) quit his job as a traveling salesman of laces and fabrics to pursue a career as a photographer. He believed some of his best photos were taken when he was in his seventies.

A New Yorker all his life, you can see his love for the city.

Mythic, dreamy.

Even his business card is moody and romantic.

All of these images are from the 1930's.