Dirty and Polluted New York City in the 1970s: Vintage Photos Show the Another Side of NYC Before the Great Clean-up Began

#1 Construction of Independence Plaza North, cobblestoned West Street and Lower Manhattan from under the elevated West Side Highway, New York, June 1973

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#2 Independence Plaza North going up in what is now Tribeca in Lower Manhattan, June 1973

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#3 Battery Park City being built using land excavated from the World Trade Center construction site across West Street,April 1974

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#4 Battery Park City landfill, NY Telephone Company, abandoned West Side Highway and the World Trade Center, 1974

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#5 Boxes of Adam and Eve products on Reade Street looking east from West Broadway, New York, July 1974

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#6 The Battery Park City landfill muck, New York, June 1974

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#7 Battery Park City was just a lot of mud with a great view to the industrial skyline of Jersey City and the Colgate Clock, right across West Street from the World Trade Center, April 1975

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#8 View from the 58th floor of the World Trade Center to the Battery Park City landfill, Pier A, end of the West Side Highway and New York Harbor on a foggy afternoon, March 1975

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#9 July 4th Holiday at the Kosciusko Swimming Pool in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant District, July 1974.

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#10 People looking at boat traffic on the East River with the Manhattan Bridge and NYC in the background, July 1974.

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#11 Lynch Park, Brooklyn, NYC, June 1974.

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#12 A homeless man sleeps next to a 50 gallon drum of burning scavenged wood, New York, 1970

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#13 An abandoned ’64 Rambler, Queens, New York, June 1973

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#14 An abandoned car at the river, Queens, New York, May 1973

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#15 Subway 1973-style with graffiti, March 1973

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#16 Abandoned piers at Exchange Place in Jersey City and the World Trade Center across the Hudson in Lower Manhattan, April 1975

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#17 59th Street Bridge seen from the east side drive, Manhattan, August 1974.

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#18 Williamsburg Bridge facing towards Manhattan, July 1974.

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#19 A 1960s Ford Galaxie and a battered early 1960s Plymouth Valiant cruise along Canal Street with peeling pavement, 1973

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#20 Ellis Island and industrial Jersey City shoreline across the Hudson with abandoned CRRNJ railroad terminal, June 1973

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#21 Half buried early 1960s Dodge Polara station wagon on the beach at the ocean side of Breezy Point in Queens, an abandoned apartment building at left distance, 1973

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#22 Pier ruins across West Street from the World Trade Center, Battery Park City and the World Financial Center would be built here in later years, March 1973

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#23 Ruins of old piers across West Street from the World Trade Center where is exactly the World Financial Center is now, March 1973

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#24 Skeleton of apartment building never completed, abandoned refrigerators and a burned out 1965 Ford Mustang, Breezy Point, Queens looking toward Brooklyn, 1973

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#25 Battery Park City being created from soil dug out to build the World Trade Center, Statue of Liberty in the distance,March 1974

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#26 Battery Park City landfill edge by Hudson being constructed looking south to Pier A, 1974

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#27 The hulking West Side Highway closed and abandoned, New York, June 1974

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#28 Theatre Alley downtown off Ann Street, the narrowest street in Manhattan, filled with the litter and trash, March 1974

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#29 World Trade Center (the dark building at Vesey and West St) from Battery Park City landfill, the West Side Highway crosses the whole view, April 1974

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#30 View from Pier A’s fire escape, Battery Park City landfill, West Side Highway, World Trade Center and lots of colorful 1970s cars on a rainy, foggy day, 1975

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#31 Where the beautiful Battery Park City esplanade along the Hudson is now, June 1975

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#32 Nassau Street looking toward Wall Street, Lower Manhattan, 1976

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#33 The swampy fields of future Battery Park City, The World Trade Center hovers, New York, August 1976

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#34 The abandoned West Side Highway looking out at the completed Battery Park City landfill, New York, April 1978

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#35 Welcome to Marlboro Country’ sign under the West Side Highway by 150th Street, New York, September 1979

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#36 East River Park in Manhattan, July 1974.

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#37 Manhattan Bridge tower in Brooklyn, June 1974.

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#38 Playground in East River Park in Manhattan, July 1974.

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#39 Puerto-Rican boy playing softball in Brooklyn’s Hiland Park, July 1974.

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#40 East River Park in Manhattan, July 1974.

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#41 Man lounging on a park bench with his radio on the Reis Park boardwalk in NYC, July 1974.

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#42 Lynch Park in Brooklyn, June 1974.

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#43 Boys playing frisbee across West 46th Street in Manhattan, July 1974.

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#44 Block of brownstone residences in Park Slope of Brooklyn, June 1974.

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#45 Avenue D housing project on the Lower East side of Manhattan, June 1974.

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#46 Turn of the century brownstone apartments being gentrified, Brooklyn, July 1974.

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#47 Three young girls on Bond Street, Brooklyn, July 1974.

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#48 A lot of abandoned car chunks of a Triumph Spitfire at Plum Beach near Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn, May 1973

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#49 An abandoned 1960s Ford Thunderbird with broken-out windows and a torn vinyl roof, an abandoned apartment building completes the scene, Breezy Point, Queens, June 1973

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#50 Breezy Point in Queens, New York near the Atlantic Ocean with the abandoned skeleton of an apartment building that was never finished, June 1973

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#51 23rd St and abandoned West Side Highway, a battered Ford Galaxy 500 drives by on cobblestones, April 1975

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#52 Three young girls in Brooklyn, July 1974.

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#53 Young Man with His Leg in a Cast in Hiland Park of Brooklyn, July 1974.

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#54 Children at the beach in Reis Park, Brooklyn, July 1974.

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#55 Children at the beach in Reis Park, Brooklyn, July 1974.

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#56 Elevated train tracks at Bushwick Avenue in Brooklyn, NYC, June 1974.

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#57 Man working on his car in Hell’s Kitchen, NYC, June 1974.

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#58 Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan, July 1974.

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#59 Puerto-Rican boys playing softball in Brooklyn’s Hiland Park, July 1974.

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#60 A street scene in Brooklyn, New York City, 1974

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#61 A forlorn old industrial neighborhood in Brooklyn, 1974

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#62 The Kosciusko public swimming pool, Bedford-Stuyvesant district of Brooklyn, July 1974

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#63 Boy scout leader recruiting among Latin Youths Bedford Stuyvesant district of Brooklyn, June 1974.

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#64 House in Park Slope, Brooklyn, June 1974.

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