Remember the days when you would put on your very best gown, three-piece suit or top hat, and head to the park for a leisurely walk?
Here are some striking depictions of elegant New Yorkers absolutely crushing it in Central Park between 1862 and 1912:
Nineteenth century swag; men standing on Willowdell Arch in 1862:
c/o NYPL
A crowd gathered at the Central Park Mall in 1892:
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Extremely well-dressed for a boat ride in 1894:
c/o NYPL
“Lover’s Lane” … 1896.
c/o NYPL
Fancy children riding a goat carriage and bossing around an adult in 1901:
c/o NYPL
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Even dressed to the nines while playing tennis in 1904:
c/o NYPL
Bustling at the Promenade, 1906:
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Saturday afternoon in the park – 1909:
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Ladies lounging in style, with the Plaza Hotel in the background – 1912:
c/o NYPL
Where are the people of color?
People of Color also dressed beautifully back then….what are you implying?
Why are there no people of color displayed in any of these pictures? Were people of color allowed in Central Park?
Kind of nice wasn’t it? People actually cared about how they looked and dressed in public. Not that there aren’t those that still do, but more and more it is commonplace to see folks shopping in pajamas and slippers, traveling in sweatpants, etc.
It feels good to get “dressed up” and looking your best. My dad used to tell me when he was younger, you’d put on a suit just to take a girl to the movies. That’s when a man wouldn’t leave the house without his hat (and not a baseball cap).
I wish we still had a little bit of that left.
Puddintame
I couldn’t agree with you more! I don’t understand how people can go out in their pajama bottoms. What is their problem with putting on shorts/sweatpants or a pair of jeans? In answer to the other person who wanted to know why there are no blacks in these pictures – there was an age in this country’s history called the Gilded Age. The very wealthy had expensive parties and dinners and lived in mansions, most of which are the buildings on 5th Avenue. Meanwhile, there were immigrants who came by ship (not in first class either) from other countries to come here for a better life and lived in a small apartment with no heat and got paid very little for many hours of hard work. Visit the Lower East Side Tenement Museum or go to the Museum of the City of New York and see the film about NY’s history.