The NY Times City Room Blog is one of my favorite sites to find strange odds and ends about life in "The City." Over the weekend, they posted a clip from an experimental film (remember experimental film?!) by Hollis Frampton in which he shot a time-lapse journey through the city. Making his trek on a weekend in 1968, Frampton starts at the Brooklyn Bridge then heads up Broadway, through Union Square, Madison Square, Sixth Avenue and ends in a teeming Central Park.
What is most surprising to me about this filmed time capsule is how little the essential streetscape of the city has changed, especially in lower Manhattan. I could see and identifying many of the buildings along the journey, though certainly the signage and some facades have been altered. However, what's most remarkable to a New Yorker is the strange lack of people on the sidewalks, not to mention the abundant availability of parking on the street.