From the late-night cafes of Greenwich Village to jazz concerts at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, 1950s New York City was a thrilling place to be.
New York City is always changing. From decade to decade, the city seems to transform, sloughing off its old skin and emerging as something entirely new. This was especially true in 1950s New York City.
The decade was a period of transition. Post-World War II, the city began to experience new economic and cultural power. Poets swarmed cafes in Greenwich Village, advertising executives churned out slogans on Madison Avenue, and performers at the Apollo Theater wowed crowds in Harlem. Meanwhile, the city also began to transform in more concrete ways, adding public works like the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel and overseeing the construction of the United Nations Headquarters.
But the city still had a gritty side, too. Downtown, the Bowery neighborhood was known as New York's "Skid Row." Seemingly doomed by an elevated train, which cast the area into darkness, it had been known as a hub of brothels, pawn shops, and saloons for years. People often drank alcohol on the sidewalks, and homeless people slept outside. Meanwhile, the Mafia continued to quietly — and sometimes loudly — operate in New York City, and the ongoing Cold War inspired terror across the entire metropolis.
New York City in the 1950s was, in other words, a time of both art and fear, and a time of both economic power and devastating poverty.
Check out photos of 1950s New York in the gallery above, and read on to learn more about what life was like in the city during this decade.
1950s New York City: A Time When Art Thrived
Though the colorful 1960s are often seen as the peak of art and creative freedom, New York City in the 1950s was also an artistic mecca. Poets and artists set down roots in Greenwich Village, then considered a less desirable neighborhood than it is today, flocking to late-night cafes to share their work.
Writers like Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, and Jack Kerouac made up the population of the Village, which one resident described as "Endsville."
Bettmann/Getty ImagesArtists at the Gaslight Cafe in Greenwich Village in New York. 1959.
Uptown, in Harlem, the Apollo Theater remained a neighborhood gem, attracting incredible acts like Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, and Josephine Baker. Jazz stars like Miles Davis and John Coltrane performed at the Apollo Theater in the 1950s, and Sidney Poitier appeared in the Apollo's first-ever dramatic play shown on the theater's stage, The Detective Story.
In between Greenwich Village and Harlem, advertising executives working on Madison Avenue cranked out a different kind of art. The country, flush with post-war prosperity, had more purchasing power than ever. And ad men on Madison Avenue — "Mad Men" — began to work on product promotion aimed at customers before they even entered a store.
Bettmann/Getty ImagesA salesman on Madison Avenue in New York. 1953.
Meanwhile, the metropolis was transforming in other ways as well. The Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel opened in 1950, the United Nations Headquarters was opened in 1951, and the construction of the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, which connects Staten Island and Brooklyn, began in 1959.
But New York City in the 1950s had a dark side too.
The Dark Underbelly Of New York In The 1950s
The decline of Times Square had arguably started in the 1930s, when the Great Depression transformed the glamorous theater district into an area full of burlesque shows, dance halls, and cheap restaurants. But this downward spiral continued in the 1950s. Efforts to curb the growth of disreputable businesses in the area were unsuccessful, though Times Square in the 1950s was nowhere near as seedy as it would be in the 1970s and 1980s.
Lenscap/Alamy Stock PhotoTimes Square in 1959.
Elsewhere, other neighborhoods also struggled. The Bowery had long been a rough area of the city, partly due to the 19th-century construction of the Third Avenue Elevated railway, which literally cast the neighborhood in darkness and made it an undesirable place to live. Though plans had been put in place to tear down the elevated train in the 1950s, the neighborhood still had a reputation for attracting alcoholics, unhoused people, and sex workers. Indeed, it wouldn't be until later decades that the Bowery became associated with the punk scene after the iconic CBGB club opened in 1973.
The Bowery also had a long history of being home to some of the city's most notorious gangs and, indeed, gangs still roamed the streets of 1950s New York. Some were fairly harmless teenage groups — but others were far more organized, and far more deadly. The Mafia still operated in New York, a fact which became clear with the 1957 murder of mob boss Albert Anastasia.
Amid all this, New Yorkers still lived under the shadow of the Cold War, a fact they could hardly forget with a U.S. missile erected at Grand Central Station or the conviction of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in 1951.
Public DomainThe Redstone missile at Grand Central. 1957.
In the end, life in New York City in the 1950s was much like life in the city during other decades. It was a mix of glamour and poverty; new and old; decay and development. For a closer look, enjoy the gallery above.
After looking through these images of New York City in the 1950s, discover these haunting photos taken in New York City tenements. Or, check out these photos of Times Square at its lowest.
