raw_stories.yml

- address: 311 Bridge St
  coords: [-73.98510921266623, 40.694323522579225]
  boro: 3
  block: 2047
  lot: 7
  text: In the 1980s, this 1847 Greek Revival church building (longtime home of the Brooklyn’s oldest African-American congregation) sat in its original habitat, surrounded by other 19th century low-rise wood and brick buildings. Landmarked in 1981, it survived the 1990s development of neighboring blocks into Downtown Brooklyn’s MetroTech complex and today still stands proudly among the surrounding high-rises, now part of NYU’s School of Engineering. 

- address: 267 Court Street
  boro: 3
  block: 408
  lot: 9
  text: "The old Lido Theater building, dating to the late 1930s, reborn in the 1970s as the Cobble Hill Cinemas. “Now Playing” in 1983 (check out the side of the marquee in the pic of the adjacent building): The Big Chill, A Christmas Story and Yentl."

- address: 128 Flatbush Avenue
  coords: [-73.97801467635225, 40.68440736688427]
  boro: 3
  block: 926
  lot: 1
  text: Hard to believe, but look carefully. VERY carefully. Hiding under the tawdry aluminum siding advertising the 1980s King Fried Chicken lies the landmark Times Plaza Control House in the middle of the intersection of Flatbush, Fourth and Atlantic Avenues. A Flemish Revival style kiosk built in 1908 by Heins & Lafarge as the entrance to the busy IRT subway station underneath, the building was restored to its original appearance in 2005 and now guards the past opposite the ultra-contemporary Barclays Center across the street.

- address: 135 Montague Street
  coords: [-73.99397518234171, 40.69477549721074]
  boro: 3
  block: 243
  lot: 20
  text: Change comes to old Brooklyn Heights. When a Burger King franchise was first proposed for this historic 1925 building in the landmark district in the mid 1970s, neighborhood opposition ran so strong that protesters wearing “Whopper Stopper” t-shirts picketed the corporate offices. They failed – and by the early 1980s, the neon flame-broiled burgers were shining in the windows here.

- address: 1501 Surf Avenue
  coords: [-73.982410971466, 40.57541812512295]
  boro: 3
  block: 7074
  lot: 190
  text: Coney Island’s Thunderbolt roller coaster, made even more famous by Woody Allen’s 1977 movie Annie Hall. Allen’s character Alvy Singer explains to Diane Keaton’s Annie that all his neuroses can be traced to the fact he was raised in a small shack right under the rattling tracks. This pic was shot just after the coaster closed down for good in 1982. After almost 20 years of abandonment, it was eventually torn down in 2000.

- address: 261 Moore Street
  boro: 3
  block: 3101
  lot: 22
  text: The Roberta’s pizzeria building. The ambience hasn’t changed a bit since 1983!

- address: 173 Stuyvesant Avenue
  coords: [-73.93303000643822, 40.689058872006456]
  boro: 3
  block: 1626
  lot: 1
  text: Fictional home of “Mookie” from Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing, on the northeast corner of Quincy Street.  The entire 1980s period film was shot on Stuyvesant Avenue, although Sal’s Famous Pizzeria was a set built on an empty lot on the block.

- address: 273 Bleecker Street
  coords: [-74.00310747998739, 40.73154038557723]
  boro: 1
  block: 590
  lot: 9
  text: Matt Umanov Guitars...an institution for vintage instruments since the 1960s…seen here, less than two decades old.

- address: 378 Avenue of the Americas
  coords: [-73.99977718202582, 40.732848929976456]
  boro: 1
  block: 553
  lot: 1
  text: Branch of the Manufacturers Hanover Trust Bank (aka “Manny Hanny”), which traced its lineage back to 1812 but was merged out of existence a few years after this pic was snapped. Today the site is…a drugstore.

- address: 396 Avenue of the Americas
  boro: 1
  block: 553
  lot: 9
  text: B. Dalton bookseller, just a few doors down from a Barnes & Noble bookstore. Imagine an era when two bricks & mortar bookstores could thrive on the same block!

- address: 403 Avenue of the Americas 
  boro: 1
  block: 593
  lot: 13
  text: Crazy Eddie discount electronics store. The slogan from their ubiquitous ads was “His Prices Are Insane!” Turns out, Eddie wasn’t crazy, just a financial fraud, and the chain went bankrupt by the late 1980s.

- address: 71 Fourth Avenue
  coords: [-73.99027099373443, 40.73106173017737]
  boro: 1
  block: 555
  lot: 18
  text: “You lookin’ at me?!” In 1980s NYC, no one seem to care much about blurring faces out of street photographs.

- address: 126 East 14th Street
  coords: [-73.9880303795452, 40.73350615224527]
  boro: 1
  block: 559
  lot: 22
  text: The famed Palladium, a 1920s Fox movie palace turned 1960s/70s concert hall called the Academy of Music, where bands like the Rolling Stones and The Clash made their NYC debuts, rechristened the Palladium and turned into one of the hottest 1980s clubs

- address: 14 West 14th Street
  boro: 1
  block: 577
  lot: 32
  text: Branch of V.I.M. Jeans & Sneakers, whose discount locations exploded across NYC during the late 1970s and early 1980s during the designer jeans craze

- address: 205 East Houston Street 
  boro: 1
  block: 412
  lot: 21
  text: Katz’s Delicatessen. This is what the outside looked like in the 1980s When Harry Met Sally inside. Probably nothing has changed in 100 years except for the car out front.

- address: City Hall Park, 52 Chambers Street
  coords: [-74.00626947568173, 40.712019147293375]
  boro: 1
  block: 122
  lot: 1
  text: City Hall in Manhattan. Many full-block municipal buildings didn’t photograph well in this collection but City Hall comes out OK. Maybe you see Ed Koch asking from the steps, “How'm I doin'?”

- address: 15 Park Row
  coords: [-74.00743317919432,40.71148822250231]
  boro: 1
  block: 90
  lot: 7
  text: J&R Music World. If you were downtown, this was the place to go to buy LPs, cassettes and starting in the 80s, CDs.

- address: 345 Chambers Street
  coords: [-74.01675688455053, 40.71916062600425]
  boro: 1
  block: 16
  lot: 12
  text: The soon-to-be-home of Manhattan’s prestigious Stuyvesant High School, announced in 1983 to be located at the corner of West Street and Chambers Street but not actually completed until 1993

- address: 
  coords: [-74.012450481566, 40.70764972562901]
  boro: 1
  block: 49
  lot: 1
  text: Trinity Church

- address: Wall St & Broad St
  boro: 1
  block: 26
  lot: 1
  text: NYSE? Or across street? Looks like shot take from high up on steps of Federal Hall…photographer climbed on Washington’s staute?

- address: 
  boro: 1
  block: 7
  lot: 35
  text: Fraunces Tavern...one of Manhattan’s oldest surviving buildings

- address: 11 Wall Street
  boro: 1
  block: 26
  lot: 1
  text: The New York Stock Exchange, taken from high up on the steps of Federal Hall across the street…seems as if the photographer climbed up on Washington’s statue to get the shot!

- address: 94-00 Ditmars Boulevard
  boro: 4
  block: 926
  lot: 1
  text: LaGuardia Airport…a postcard shot of this enormous parcel. (Who knew that the airport has a street address?!)

- address: 89-70 Cooper Avenue
  boro: 4
  block: 3176
  lot: 45
  text: Archie Bunker’s house!

- address: 52-02 108th Street
  boro: 4
  block: 1943
  lot: 51
  text: The once-and-always famous Lemon Ice King of Corona

- address: 31-01 Steinway Street
  boro: 4
  block: 678
  lot: 40
  text: A classic Woolworth five-and-dime in Astoria

- address: 1237 Jerome Avenue
  boro: 2
  block: 2855
  lot: 1
  text: Fictional Sherman McCoy from Tom Wolfe's "Bonfire of the Vanities" had his hit-and-run accident one fateful night at this Bronx corner

- address: 1280 Ryawa Avenue
  boro: 2
  block: 2780
  lot: 73
  text: Imagine this pick-up truck loaded with tomatoes as it visits the Hunts Point Market in the Bronx

- address: 800 East 161 Street
  boro: 2
  block: 2491
  lot: 1
  text: The House That Ruth Built (aka Yankee Stadium). Technically across the street but this is where the city stuck the picture on the map.

- address: 1 Richmond Terrace
  boro: 5
  block: 2
  lot: 1
  text: St. George Terminal. The guy slowly walking away from the Staten Island Ferry, briefcase in hand, must've had a long day at the office.