Astor Place 1983

A photographer named Peter Bennett captured the shot below in 1983, presumably from within (or on top?) of 770 Broadway (formerly Wannamaker's and later K-Mart, and allegedly soon-to-be Wegman's). I spotted it on Facebook, and it stopped me dead in my tracks, as they say.

Here we're looking east over Astor Place and its surrounding, East Village environs. This was obviously taken well before the Cooper Union dormitory was erected in 1992, before the comparatively squat NYU building on the left was razed to accommodate the giant Death Star/Rubik's Cube building went up, before the shampoo bottle condo tower was built in the southernly parking lot, before the corner of St. Marks & Third was razed and before the Gringo mural was painted over. 

This is the Astor Place I fell in love with. Click on it to enlarge. For more of Bennett's work, but sure to check out his website. 

Comments

[DrBOP]

First time I remember this intersection was about 18 years previous to this pic's date, so a couple of even the buildings in this '83 pic look "modern" to me. My grandfather would think he was looking at a World's Fair City of the Future display today.....
minus the flying cars of course.

[Dave]

It's still in the subway station beneath. Astor built his fortune on beaver pelts in Oregon, hence the city Astoria, Oregon. Oregon also has a beaver on its state flag.