Last year, I watched New Amsterdam because the central character was 400 years old. He came to North America with the first Dutch settlers and watched the small settlement grow into today's New York City. He would get these really cool flashbacks of historical New York. There was a particularly cool sequence where he took a picture of Times Square every year and lined the pictures up on a wall so he could see how Times Square had changed over time. I thought the concept was awesome, but the show got cancelled. Most shows I really like get cancelled. I think it's an indication of how out of touch I am. (Ahem, when will they make an Arrested Development movie?!?)
This year, I've been watching Life on Mars for similar reasons. The hero in Life on Mars is a present day policeman who gets hit by a car while pursuing a suspect and wakes up to find himself in 1973 (he's actually in a coma in 2009). The show works very hard to make sure all the props are consistent with the 1970s, and the show is often shot in industrial parts of Brooklyn where signs of progress are less apparent. It's pretty cool.
Finally, I thought I'd share The New York Public Library Digital Gallery -- it's cool because you can type in a street in Manhattan, and it'll show you all archived pictures of that particular street corner over time so you can see how it's changed.
Here's a picture of a street near my apartment that was taken in 1933.
Here's a picture of what it will look like this fall once construction is done on the glass building.
Check it at http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/dgkeysearchresult.cfm?num=72&word=13th=
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