From the New York Public Library’s postcard collection. First, a nice photo from 1906 of the entrance to Belvedere Castle in Central Park from the terrace:
I’m not sure when the “Observatory” name fell out of use, but it was quite some time ago.
Next, a slightly blurry, longer view from 1905:
And finally, a colorized version of the second picture, listed as from between 1905 and 1914:
The colorized postcards are fascinating. They were hand-painted over the photos, which is why the colors seem a little weird. More importantly, since this was not exactly high art, the work was not done with great precision. The colorized versions are always missing some of the detail of the original photos. Sometimes they are missing so much detail that they seem more like cartoons even though there is always a photo as the base of the image.
You must be logged in to post a comment.