I just can’t explain this habot/obsession. But I get curious about a public domain image that comes up randomly in my browser, and rather then W-O-R-K-I-N-G I am digging down the internet rabbit holes of curiosity.
Yet another one spawned by the Free to Use Browser Extension, aka my curiosity portal.
Today’s random image came up just with a scene of what would most likely be New York City with only the hand written label “5th Ave”. It was a thing that whispered in my ear, “Where exactly is this? Can I compare it to a current view in Google Streetview?” Surely, I should just slap on a Mike Cauilfield mega prompt and let the ChatGPT tell me. But there’s no fun in that.
The first stop is following the link in my browser to the Library of Congress page for the photo with only a title “5th Ave”
Just a street scene, likely early 1900s judging from the Model T style cars, some kind of gate with a title “For Humanity” some plus signs, I’d guess Red Cross symbols, and also the words “Liberty Union”. There’s no street signs to identify a cross street, now any easily readable names of businesses.
The caption on the LoC provides a scant bit of info:
Photograph shows a Red Cross arch for a Naval parade on Fifth Avenue which took place on December 26, 1918. (Source: Flickr Commons project, 2016)
https://www.loc.gov/resource/ggbain.28010
I generally prefer to share and work from the image in the Flickr Commons, mainly because usually there are comments, often many of them, that provide information about the photos and the subject. I put to work my secret weapon- my flickr commons bookmarklet tool. From the LoC page, I select the text that identifies the title “5th Ave” and click the bookmarklet. I get a lot of results in this case because of the crappy search word, but I spot the image I seek, 4th from the top. Easy find.
It’s rare in my experience to find a photo in the flickr commons where no one has added a comment to help identify it. I can help! Maybe, I roll up my sleeves. No I do noy actually, its cold today. Maybe I get more coffee.
The natural thing to me is to do a web search OMG SEARCH IS DEAD! BROKEN! wrong again, Biff– I look for Naval parade on Fifth Avenue December 26, 1918 and boom, it’s pretty much there, a story from the New York Times published December 21, 2018 about the upcoming parade (it’s a month and change since WWI ended) —
NAVY PARADE PLANS READY; Men Will March in Fifth Avenue After Review by Daniels
Ah, did you hear the sound of brain hitting cement? Yup, paywall. Luckily I have Yet Another Bookmarklet tool, My Jump the Paywall in One Click one that cracks the site open in archive.today — see http://archive.today/U57OG (if its not blocked in your country).
The article describes the parade route:
Immediately after the review, or about 1:30 P. M., a land parade of the sailors of the fleet will start at Ninety-sixth Street and Broadway. At Seventy-ninth Street additional divisions will join. The route will be south to Fifty-ninth Street, to Fifth Avenue, to Twenty-third Street. At this point the men will march to the North River and embark for their respective ships.
http://archive.today/U57OG
The photo location then on Fifth Avenue is anywhere between Twenty-third and Fifty-ninth Street. The NYT article described a viewing stand, but that does not describe what I see in the photo above.
The official reviewing stand will be at Twenty-fifth Street and Fifth Avenue, near the temporary victory arch, which is expected to be completed in time for preliminary dedication exercises after the parade has passed.
http://archive.today/U57OG
Just to show you the slimy slide of public domain, you are welcome to buy a copy of the same photo from Alamy, the same that you can get for free from reputable sources.
A few bits down my google search results, like the 5th one (remind me again how web search is broken??) I find a similar photo of that gate/arch across the street, form a different angle. Okay this one is from Getty Images a bargain at CA$375, but you know I am not looking for the image, but information. And they provide it in the image description:
Naval Parade, 12/26/18, Photograph shows a Red Cross arch for a Naval parade on Fifth Avenue which took place on December 26, 1918. The view is looking north on 5th Avenue on 42nd Street.
There it is, the exact location, looking north up Fifth Avenue at the intersection with 42nd Street. I jump to Google Maps, and what a lovely surprise to find that just to the left in that 1918 photo is the location of the New York Public Library, you know the classic one with the greek columns and the lions out in front. Wikipedia notes it was finished in 1911, so it’s that close.
I know I have visited the grand old library on some trip to NYC where I walked around a bunch, but got stumped finding it in my flickr photos. I ended up sifting through my Twitter archive using a search just on “library” and I found 2 tweets mentioning my stop at the 42nd Street Library.
The archive have no dates and I’ve zapped them all from Twitter. The 4square link is of course dead, but the other one is to my instagram account a photo of the lion out in front. I wont embed that but I did find a copy in my flickr stream:
But the IG photo does give me a date, May 4, 2011. I see no others, but I am very sure I would have walked north on 5th Avenue and stopped to cross 42nd Street.
My last thing I like to do is to check this location in google maps and save a screenshot of it in Streetview. So I can try an overlay of the 1918 photo and see if I can align it to the 2024 image from Streetview (used in this posts Featured Image), here is a comparison using the old image comparing TwentyTwenty plugin (which seems gone but it still works)
I rather like how bicycle rider on the bottom right in the 2024 streetview is kind of mirrored in the 1918 photo by the blur of a car on the bottom left.
There’s not any of the old buildings from 1918 left, so you just have to go half a block left to find the lbrary.
This was more of the “how much can I find with my own brain” but also to see what I could find to add information to the 1918 photo in the flickr commons.
It’s only a matter of time til this strikes again.
Featured Image: Composite of 5th Ave. (LOC) flickr photo by The Library of Congress shared with no copyright restriction (Flickr Commons) atop screenshot of Google Street view scene from 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue, New York.
