A Very Village Winter
An exciting feature of Village Preservation’s extensive Historic Image Archive is the ability to filter images by category, or “tag.” We have painstakingly tagged every single one of our more than 5,000 historic photographs (an ever-growing number), so that users can easily view images organized by their interests. Today, we will be using the “winter” tag to explore village winters of years past.
Blizzard of 1978
Several photos shown in the search are from the Riccardo Spina Collection of the Northeast Blizzard of 1978. Hitting the Northeastern United States on Sunday, February 5th, 1978, and lasting until the 7th, the storm dropped 17.7 inches of snow over New York City.
These photos are featured in the Riccardo Spina Collection. Spina’s roots in Greenwich Village date to his family’s arrival from Italy in 1890. He grew up at 173 Bleecker Street and later lived at 225 Sullivan Street. His passion for photography began as a teenager, eventually going on to study the field at Parsons, taking hundreds of photos throughout the 1970s and 80s. The collection contains shots of small businesses, parades, architectural gems, and everyday slices of Village life, a true time capsule of day-to-day life in the neighborhood in the mid-to-late 20th century. Click HERE to explore the entire collection.
Blizzard of 1888
Another image in the archive documents the neighborhood following the Great Blizzard of 1888. This blizzard hit the Northeast from March 11th to March 14th, 1888. In New York, 21 inches of snow fell within twenty-four hours. With frigid temperatures that lasted weeks, tall snowbanks, as pictured above, remained piled on curbs across the city.
This image comes from the New York Bound Bookshop collection. Donated to Village Preservation in 1996 by owners Judith Stonehill and Barbara Cohen, it features images of the neighborhood from the later 19th and early 20th centuries. Click HERE to explore the entire collection.
Washington Square Christmas Tree
The Washington Square Christmas tree is one of our neighborhood’s longest and most loved traditions. Dating to 1924, and organized annually by the Washington Square Association, neighbors gather around the arch to sing carols and watch the tree lighting.
This particular image dates to c. 1950, and is from the Nat Kaufman Collection. Nat Kaufman bought most of his photography equipment and supplies at Coloute’s camera store on Christopher Street between Bleecker and 7th Avenue South, and photos capture the neighborhood from 1950 to 1956. Click HERE to explore the collection.
To check out the image tagging for yourself, click here to access the archive, select whichever tag(s) you are interested in, and then hit “apply.” You can view one tag at a time, or as many as you’d like. And whether you’ve accessed an image by this method or directly within a collection, all of the tags relevant to an image appear hyperlinked at the top of its page, so you can see how images are organized, and easily visit any of the tags. Have fun exploring Village Preservation’s Historic Image Archive!