1957 New York Times Square at Night (silent film)

This is silent (no audio) 16mm amateur home movie footage taken back in 1957 in New York's Times Square at night. You get to see a lot of the famous electric signs of that time, including the most famous of them all: the smoking Camel cigarette sign, featuring a picture Phil Silvers blowing real smoke rings. You also see a brief sequence of the people on the street, passing under a theater marquee, and also a somewhat out-of-focus sequence of someone tossing a pizza.

I used motion stabilization software to remove the shake from the hand-held footage. This makes it look more professional, but I assure you it simply home movie footage, although it was taken with a very good 16mm camera, and was perfectly exposed, something that was tough to do back in those days before auto exposure.

Enjoy!

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• 1957
• New
• York
• Times
• Square
• Camel
• Phil
• Silvers
• 16mm
• film
• amateur

[tickntimebombfun]

i can watch this for hours, looking at NY now is almost depressing

[1952kid]

America at its best. 

[THYRDEYE]

Great footage. Check out the Urban Eye doc which has some amazing shots of great signs and long gone places.

[usermikes]

Times Square was great back then!

[TamarZucker]

My father had a bookstore on 42nd Street 1961-1965. Mom & I used to meet him every night after the store closed to go eat up in Harlem at Wing Hings (1/2 Lobster in Black Bean Sauce was $1.35, house soup and oranges for dessert free) THIS is my Times Square. Exciting, crowded, dirty, forbidden. All night movie theaters, Grants, the Fascination Parlor, working girls and drunks, tourists, gypsy children, hustlers, sailors, junkies, little shoe shine boys and the LIGHTS. My god, the lights!

[amberola1b]

If you had`nt posted this film on Utube, you should have it archived in some museum, I`ve never seen such beautiful views of Times Square taken like this and at night from back in the day, and with such expert remastering. Thank you, and just like the other person .saidf in his posting, I loved every minute of it. thank you,

[ThunderD15]

Simply amazing, I would kill to live in the 50's. And omg there's smoking signs.. wow lol man If i could be born anytime i would want to be born in 1942.. you know so i could be a teen in the 50's :p

[tjbnyc76]

This actually made me cry - it's a glimpse of a New York City we'll never see again. Did Times Square ever actually look this exciting, this shiny, this gloriously gaudy - this UNIQUELY New York/American? Today, you could be in Times Square, or in Beijing, or Los Angeles, or London - all those flat screen, digital billboards are so homogenized. No character whatsoever. Loved every second of this.

[myanelli]

Wow.... This is really kool....

Mike

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