I’ve spoken about University Place several times here, but as a native of the Upper East Side, University Place always seemed like the “mouth” of downtown (that is unless your southbound 6 train bypassed Union Square and went straight to Astor Place).
Shortly after moving into the neighborhood in 1996, I shot the photograph above, for no especially notable reason. At the time, it didn’t seem like a particularly remarkable vantage point. Sure, the World Trade Center was visible, but you could get a much better, centered view of the towers from the top of LaGuardia Place. In any case, I snapped it and filed it away.
The other day, meanwhile, I happened upon a shot on Flickr taken by one Brian Biggs from about eleven years earlier of pretty much the same spot, more or less (he framed the Twin Towers a little better than I did). Here’s his shot below.
In the wake of this discovery, I thought I’d try to recapture the same spot today. Obviously, the World Trade Center is no longer what it was, but check out how much else has changed (notably the newer, taller condos on the southwest corner of University Place and 14th Street, where Patterson’s Silks -- later an Odd Lots -- used to stand.
Recent Comments