It’s one of the world’s most iconic cities, yet a century ago, New York City looked dramatically different. These remarkable photographs, taken between 1884 and 1926, capture the Big Apple in its formative years, from the rise of the first skyscrapers and the arrival of the Statue of Liberty to glimpses of the highs and lows of everyday life frozen in time. Each image offers a window into a city on the brink of transformation.
Click or scroll on to discover incredible historic images of New York City as you've never seen it before...
In the 1880s, the city limits of the Big Apple were expanding almost as quickly as its population. This rapid urbanization saw the fortunes of the city's districts ebb and flow.
Pictured here in 1884 is a street known as the Bowery in Lower Manhattan. Named after the Dutch word for farm, it evolved from a rural lane to a bustling urban thoroughfare. Between 1860 and 1875, it was the heart of the city's theater scene, but by the time this photo was taken, it had devolved into something of a disreputable skid-row, lined with pawnshops, dance halls, saloons, and dens of iniquity.
An enduring symbol of the city, the Statue of Liberty arrived in New York Harbor in June 1885. Shipped from France in more than 200 crates and divided into 350 pieces, the monument was created by sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi and political activist Édouard Laboulaye as a tribute to 100 years of American independence and the friendship between the two nations.
In 1886, the statue was reassembled on Bedloe's Island, later renamed Liberty Island, becoming a beacon of hope for New Yorkers and new arrivals. A 1903 plaque added lines from Emma Lazarus's The New Colossus: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free."
But life for the city's most vulnerable was harsh and unrelenting. Pictured here in 1889 is a Jewish cobbler in his modest home in a coal cellar on Ludlow Street, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. He's marking the Sabbath with a braided loaf of challah bread.
The photo was taken by Danish-American journalist Jacob Riis, an ardent social reformer. Riis's photojournalism, which included books such as How the Other Half Lives, sought to expose the living conditions of New York City's poorest, realities that most of the city’s wealthier residents seldom saw. His work would go on to play a pivotal role in advancing housing reforms across the city.
Elsewhere in Manhattan, the divide between rich and poor comes sharply into view. One of the city’s most affluent streets, Fifth Avenue was renamed from the unremarkable Middle Road in 1811 as part of the Commissioners’ Plan, which reshaped Manhattan into the orderly grid known today. During the Gilded Age, wealthy industrialist families such as the Vanderbilts and Astors gravitated toward its growing prestige.
This 1889 photograph shows the west side of Fifth Avenue, by then called Millionaire’s Row for the grand mansions built there. Visible here is the impressive home of lawyer and newspaper magnate Elliott F. Shepard beside that of his brother-in-law, railroad heir William Kissam Vanderbilt.
From the 1870s, Chinese immigrants arrived in New York in search of better opportunities, many having first come to the US during the California Gold Rush or the construction of the transcontinental railroad. In 1880, the New York Times coined the term Chinatown to describe the growing community and businesses clustered around Manhattan's Mott, Pell, and Doyers streets.
Early establishments were primarily tea houses and rice shops serving Chinese New Yorkers, but by the 1880s, the area had expanded to include restaurants, curio shops, laundries, and department stores. This image of Doyers Street taken in 1890 shows it lined with eateries, cafés, and an arcade.
As New York City expanded, new commercial districts emerged. Among the most fashionable was the Ladies’ Mile, the heart of Gilded Age retail, named after the rows of luxurious shops and boutiques along Broadway.
Pictured here is the Siegel-Cooper Department Store, a landmark of the district. When it opened in 1896, it was the city’s largest retail space, occupying an entire block. Spread across six floors, its 125 departments offered everything from canned goods and feather boas to sheet music and live animals. A veritable city, it also housed a restaurant, observatory, bank, telegraph office, and even a dentist.
The city's infrastructure flourished in the latter half of the 1800s too. A staggering feat of engineering conceived by civil engineer John Augustus Roebling, Brooklyn Bridge was built between 1869 and 1883 to connect Lower Manhattan with Brooklyn Heights. At the time, it was the world's longest suspension bridge, with a central span of 1,595 feet.
This 1894 photo shows New Yorkers strolling along the bridge's pedestrian walkway as the skyline of the city rises around them. On either side, the bridge’s distinctive cables are visible, created using a unique wire-weaving method devised by Roebling himself.
The 19th century saw the construction of New York’s first tenement blocks, which contained cramped, single-room accommodation that housed many of the city’s poorest residents. This 1895 photograph shows a Native American man known as Mountain Eagle making traditional crafts with his family, while his son plays the violin in their small tenement room.
Manhattan was the ancestral land of the Lenape people before its colonization by the Dutch in the 17th century. By the 1860s, the Lenape, like many other Native communities affected by the 1830 Indian Removal Act, had been displaced and forced onto reservations or into substandard housing like this.
The 1890s saw the Big Apple's iconic skyline start to take shape, rising far higher than the masonry towers of the previous decades. This was in part due to the popularization of steel-skeleton construction, permitted by the New York City Department of Buildings in 1892, which pushed early skyscrapers to new heights.
In 1899, the tallest skyscraper in the city was the Park Row Building near City Hall, which measured 391 feet and included 30 stories and almost 1,000 offices. It cost just less than $2.8 million to build, which is the equivalent of around $109 million today when adjusted for inflation.
Central Park has been a beloved refuge for New Yorkers for centuries. A peaceful expanse of greenery amid the city's bustle, its design was created by Frederick Law Olmsted, a writer and farmer from Connecticut, who won a city-run competition with his vision for a democratic space where people of all backgrounds could enjoy nature.
The project took 15 years to complete, its landscapes shaped by hand and planted with around 500,000 trees, shrubs, and vines. The first section of the park to open was the 20-acre lake in 1858. In this image from 1897, children are seen playing with model boats on the calm water.
Theater has been part of New York’s cultural fabric since the mid-1700s, though it took nearly two centuries to settle into a defined district. By the late 1800s, theaters had moved uptown to an area that had once been rural and residential. The stretch would become the Broadway Theater District, home to early venues such as the Lyceum and the New Amsterdam.
This photograph from around the turn of the century captures the intersection of Broadway and 42nd Street, where billboards advertise the day’s performances. In the foreground, a poster promotes The Moth and the Flame, a three-act play then running at the Lyceum.
Between 1880 and 1920, tens of thousands of Italian immigrants settled in the Big Apple. The new arrivals established a community known as Little Italy in Mulberry Bend, an area of Manhattan's Five Points neighborhood that no longer exists. Living conditions were cramped, with almost 10,000 Italian-Americans residing in a two-square-mile area, most in dilapidated tenement buildings.
A clam seller is pictured here peddling his produce in Mulberry Bend in 1900. On the right is a pharmacy shopfront, its signage written in Italian. Over the years, the community spread out, establishing other Italian enclaves in the Bronx, Staten Island, and areas of Brooklyn.
In the 1870s, Coney Island, Brooklyn's southernmost waterfront neighborhood, rapidly transformed itself into a bustling seaside resort. Roller coasters, entertainment shows, and arcades laced the beachfront, drawing visitors in droves thanks to the construction of new railroads.
Steeplechase Park was one of Coney Island’s longest-running amusement parks. Created by local entrepreneur George Tilyou, it opened in 1897 and centered on a popular horse-racing ride that made it an instant family favorite. This colorized 1903 image captures the lively atmosphere of the park, showcasing its elegant white architecture, amusements, and food stands.
Photographed here is a group of policemen standing on the platform of City Hall station, where New York City’s first subway train departed from in 1904. Often described as the jewel of the original line, the now-disused station features vaulted ceilings, cut-amethyst skylights, and brass chandeliers.
Building the first subway line was a bold undertaking, requiring four years of labor and tunneling through bedrock. Many early tunnels were constructed using the cut-and-cover method: workers dug a trench in the street, installed temporary supports, then restored the roadway so excavation could continue below without disrupting traffic.
New York has long been known as a city of immigrants and a true cultural melting pot. From 1892 to 1954, the first stop for aspiring New Yorkers seeking a better life was the immigration station on Ellis Island, where arrivals were processed and their papers inspected. Over its 62-year history, more than 12 million immigrants entered the United States through its doors.
This incredible colorized image from 1905 shows an Italian immigrant family of four departing Ellis Island on its dedicated ferry, likely bound for its terminus in Lower Manhattan after being granted entry to America.
In the early 20th century, the Big Apple became a key center for the women's suffrage movement, which had been gaining momentum since the late 1800s. Members of the American Suffragette party are seen here in 1908 in front of City Hall, flanked by policemen. It was the city's first parade for the cause, which advocated equal rights for women, including the right to vote.
The parade was organized by New York City librarian and activist Maud Malone, who also pioneered the region’s first open-air suffrage meetings. Reflecting on the parade's positive reception, she later wrote: "There were as many men as women who took part that day in our demonstration."
This colorized photomechanical print from 1910 shows the bustling South Street Seaport in Lower Manhattan. The dockside is a hive of activity, with horse-drawn carts moving produce to and from waiting ships. On the right is the Antillia, a steamship that carried food and consumer goods between the West Indies and New York.
For centuries, the city’s growth was tied to its role as a major port, and until the Civil War, South Street served as its primary waterfront. Much of the shoreline was artificially created – merchants purchased water lots and filled them in to form the dockside. Lined with warehouses and markets, the area became a vital hub for domestic and international shipping.
Founded back in 1754, Columbia University is New York's oldest institution for higher education and a defining city landmark. But campus life looked pretty different in the early 20th century. In this 1910 photograph, taken in front of the Low Memorial Library, students play pushball – a comically oversized version of soccer.
Pushball was devised by Massachusetts inventor Moses Crane, who was frustrated by how difficult it was for spectators to follow an ordinary size ball during games. His solution was simple: make the ball enormous. Dubbed a "game for giants," pushball briefly became a national craze in the early 1900s.
Pictured here is the dramatic end of an early architectural icon of New York: the Equitable Life Assurance Society Building. Completed in 1870 as the company’s headquarters, the tower was gutted by a fire on January 9, 1912. As firefighters worked to contain the blaze, water from their hoses froze in the winter air, creating the eerie, ice-encrusted façade seen here.
Built on a scale far larger than most offices of its era, the Equitable Building was considered one of the city’s first skyscrapers. It featured innovative steam-powered elevators and is believed to be the first building to charge higher rents for upper floors with desirable views.
Among the world’s most famous train stations, Grand Central Terminal opened in 1913, replacing the earlier Grand Central Depot. Financed by the city and the Vanderbilt-owned New York Central Railroad, it marked the shift from steam to electric trains. Its innovative design featured sloping ramps to underground platforms instead of stairs, electric lighting, and a magnificent barreled ceiling adorned with zodiac signs.
Three weeks after the station opened, the Grand Central Oyster Bar welcomed diners. Shown here in 1915, the striking space is framed by herringbone terracotta vaults. It supplied meals for long-distance trains and fast became a popular spot for oysters or a quick lunch.
This photograph captures the 369th Infantry Regiment, nicknamed the Harlem Hellfighters, returning home in 1919 after World War I. The decorated African-American unit spent more time on the front lines than any other US regiment. Though they were denied a place in New York’s farewell parade when America entered the war in 1917, they were celebrated with a triumphant victory parade upon their return.
Beyond their bravery in battle, the Hellfighters are also credited with introducing jazz to Europe. Led by famed conductor James Reese Europe, the regiment’s band captivated their French comrades with its syncopated rhythms, evoking the energy of a Harlem jazz club.
Pictured in 1924, a mother and her children sit around the kitchen table of their modest tenement home, stringing together what appear to be artificial flowers. A 1913 survey of New York’s artificial-flower industry found that more than half of all production took place in tenement apartments just like this one.
These cottage industries, driven largely by the labor of women and children, provided some of the city’s poorest residents with a way to earn money from home. Alongside flower making, common forms of home-based work included embroidery, dressmaking, nut picking, cigarette rolling, and even toothbrush making.
Before Times Square became one of the city’s busiest thoroughfares, it was known as Longacre Square and dominated by the horse-coach trade. The arrival of the subway set its transformation in motion, drawing businesses eager to capitalize on the surge in foot traffic. The New York Times soon built its towering headquarters there, giving the area its new name. Theaters, cabaret venues, and restaurants quickly followed.
By the mid-1920s, when this photograph was taken, Times Square was rapidly evolving into the commercial hub we recognize today. Neon advertising signs lit the streets, drawing huge crowds and cementing its status as a major tourist attraction.
In the 1920s, the extravagant materialism of the Gilded Age was fading from view. The opulent mansions built by New York’s elite in the late 1800s, by then seen as excessive and outdated, were gradually demolished to make way for modern development.
This striking 1926 image shows the dismantling of one of the Vanderbilt family's mansions at 52nd Street and Fifth Avenue. This vast space was once the grand dining room, where high society had gathered for lavish dinner parties. The house was soon replaced by a skyscraper, ushering in a new era for the city.