Researching the world in which my ancestors lived, I'm writing a series of "Tuesday Time Travel" posts. Next week's post will be about the 1880s, when my great-grandparents came to New York.
This led me to reread Jack Finney's classic novel,
Time and Again. If you have ancestors who lived in New York City in the 1880s, you'll enjoy this work because it evokes the period (1882) and the place (lower Manhattan). A number of photos and sketches illustrate the main character's time-traveling adventures, including some well-known views of Central Park more than 125 years ago.
I've also been browsing period photos from the NY Public Library, including this one of
Grand Central Depot. The library's
digital gallery has many thousands of photos, not just of New York. Definitely worth a look to get a feel for what the world was like for our ancestors, wordlessly.
