“New York City is Always Busy”: Forty Minutes in 1970’s NYC

Yes, it’s another one of these travelogue films about vintage NYC.

Here’s forty minutes of period-specific footage of Manhattan from the early-to-mid 1970’s. This thing that stuck out to me, in this clip, is the portion between 7:52 and about 10:44, wherein the sound suddenly comes on, and you see a pack of kids playing on East 90th Street between Park Avenue and Lexington, which – oddly enough – was the block my parents lived on when I was born.

From there, one of the youngsters starts narrating specifics about the city, while showing footage of the tykes playing in around around the Carnegie Hill area of the Upper East Side, where I spent my formative years.

Elsewhere, it's the usual hodgepodge of stock footage of predictable locales like Central Park, Times Square, Washington Square Park, Sixth Avenue, etc., but still a compelling trip back in time. Why it says "2002" on the upper left corner eludes me.