Now & Then

The website is really well done. Fascinating stuff, especially the then and now section.

Love the pics! Great job.I’d just like to point out that the pic labeled 215 Dyckman St where the old library once stood is actually on Sherman Ave near 207st.(across the street from the Caroline)Other than the storefronts being different,the top of the building(the parapet) is exactly the same.If you look on the top left hand corner of the pic you will notice a residential building which still stands on the corner of Sherman and 207st.I went to see for myself two hours ago after seeing the same pic with a Nagle Ave tag and reading that the location was on Sherman near Dyckman.

great slides. my wife and i were m arried 65 years ago in inwood. lived there when the cloisters were built, and saw the famous Dutch house
on broaway and 204th street, and was surprised that the only dutch house in Manhattan was not mentioned. i lived there when an indian
princess lived near the henry hudson tulip tree and had a small gift shop with artifacts, thanks for the memories.

These are fabulous. It’s wonderful to recognize stores, buildings and streets from my childhood! THANK YOU.

My Mother and Father lived in Inwood most of their lives. I was born there and so was my sister. These pictures were a wonderful reminder for me and my Mother’s younger brother who is now 87. I printed these for him and I am sure he will love them. He lived in Isham Gardens when it first opened. He remembers the bus that used to take the women shopping from there and he remembers , as I do, the Indians who came to sell pottery and trinkets in the summer months. What a time. The development of one of the last parts of Manhattan. Thanks for doing this.

What a great site. I’m going to be looking at my day-to-day walks a lot differently now. Thanks.

Wonderful work – done with taste and intelligence!

Very nice site , loved the then and now pics -J.J.

Hi Cole! Thanks so much for posting these photos. My brothers and I grew up in Inwood in the 50s and 60s. Lots of memories of running around in the parks and playgrounds, as well as some hazy memories of the Miramar. I still think that Inwood was (and maybe still is) one of the best places a kid could grow up, with all the parks, subway lines and buses to get everywhere, and a multicultural environment.

Very nice.I’ve been checking in every so often for updates and you do not disappoint! If I could be of some help,pics 51 and 53 are actually Dyckman Street and Vermilya,looking across from Planet Fitness.As a kid I remember the Woolworth’s on Dyckman below Sherman Ave.,so I was surprised to see that there where actually two.Anyway,I became convinced as to the location because one of the building’s in the background is the one I grew up in,on Thayer St. Great work,looking forward to more!!!(ps-Loved pic 35,McCarroll’s Tavern.When I was a kid it was named Burnside and my friends and I would harass the daytime drinkers endlessly in the summertime!!)

I enjoy watching this …. thank you for putting up the b4 & after….

Cole, this is a beautifully done and incredibly informative site. As Inwood’s newest soon-to-be resident researcher, writer, historian, I look forward to delving into the lives and stories of Inwood’s past residents .

Great job, I love the site.

I agree with Henry Miller about the photos on Dyckman Street which are now numbered 79, 80, 81 & 82. The Woolworth’s store was at the end of Vermilyea Ave, not Post Ave. Look at the apartment buildings on the right edge of the photos. The building in the old photos has a Whalen’s Furniture poster on it which gives the address as “across the street at 165 Dyckman.” The apartment building at Post Ave indeed also has a poster painted on it, but the building has a very different structure. The complete photo used partially in #79 shows also the Baer-Hemme Garage on Dyckman Street closer to Sherman Ave where my brother Roland used to store his collection of antique Lincoln Continentals. There exists also a photo looking west from Nagle Ave along Dyckman St in 1927 which shows both apartment houses, the one at Post and the one at Vermilyea, each with its own poster.

The then and now slideshow is truly amazing. Its like seeing life flash before your eyes within a few seconds. Kudos on a great job!

The pictures are a wonderful reminder of the neighborhood I grew up in. My house is in two pictures, 130 Post Ave corner of 207th. We moved from Harlem in 1940 when I was two first to Sherman then Post. I remember the trolley cars that came down 207th and went across to Fordam Rd. Very few cars then so we could skate, ride bikes and the boys could play stickball in the gutter. Three movie houses, Ice cream parlors, 5&10′s, Jewish deli’s and bakeries. Beautiful parks. The pictures of Inwood now are hard to recognize. There was no graffitti or tacky signs then. I went to Good Shepherd and married there in 1963. And of course there was O’Connors funeral home down from the church where true Irish wakes were held. Of course we had more bars in Inwood then any other part of Manhattan, I should know… I hung out in most of them. Thank you so much Cole. Pat

I was born in Manhattan and for the first 12 years of my life lived in the apartment building at the corner of Cumming St and Seaman Avenue. No joke (and I don’t remember it being one while I grew up, but then again, I was a child…). On some photos on the web I can clearly see the windows of the apartment we lived in! Anyway, it was fantastic and so informative to explore your website, read about the history of Inwood, and watch the slide show. It was also very emotional. The photos brought back a lot of memories. (I haven’t been back to the area in decades; I moved to Europe in 1970.) They reminded me of the stories one old lady who lived in our apartment building used to recount, namely, about the upper Manhattan of her childhood (she was well into her 70s in the 1960s). She grew up surrounded by farmland. My experience is of course rather different. I attended PS98 and remember walking to school along Broadway all the way to 212th St, so many of the landmarks are familiar, including Dykman House which I loved to visit. The parks are unsurprisingly also familiar. I also attended PS52 for one year, the school that was deemed too large for the area when it was built, and was bursting at the seams by 1969, shortly after “bussing” started. Well done, and I look forward to any additions to the website!

Wonderful! The last photo I see is the one of JHS 52–is that right? I was hoping to see the old red-brick Annex with its porch overlooking Broadway.
I lived at 251 Seaman Ave. from 1942 to 1958, up the block from Bakers Field (we collected “tickets, programs, anything from the ballgame?” after every game). Are there any pictures of Seaman? Didn’t see any. It was a joy growing up a block from the park. seeing the woods and the water and the bridge every morning, and the Cloisters (one of my earliest memories is of being terrified by the Unicorn Tapestry) in the distance, living always at the border between city and country. I went to 98, taking the shortcut through the park from Seaman to the corner of Isham and Park Terrace East, crossing Broadway “under the subway” when I was little. Later meeting my friend from Cooper Street at the lamppost on the same corner; and a few years later picking her up at her house at 55 Cooper on the way to 52. Anybody remember taking a taxi “up the hill” with others late at night after getting out of the subway at Isham? Doowop groups in the station in the fifties?
Anybody remember Wolf’s candy store? How about teachers at 52–Miss Monks, crazy M. Clement, the two Miss Hickses, Miss Van Cook, Ms Van Dyke (am I making that one up?) How about “All the books in the library are either fiction or non-fiction….”?
Of course the park was the best part. What a privilege to have had it. My father said the Indians used to have annual powwows at the tulip tree and that we attended one before it was cut down. I don’t remember it of course.
Thank you so much for doing this.

I’M ORIGINALLY FROM 194ST AND BAINBRIDGE AVE, BRONX. OF COURSE I HAVE BEEN TO PARTS OF INWOOD. YOU DID A GREAT JOB, AND I’VE SEEN FROM THE COMMENT SECTION, A LOT OF PEOPLE APPRECIATE YOUR WORK. I SPENT A LOT OF TIME IN THE SUMMER AT MIRAMAR POOL. THANK YOU.

What a nice walk down memory lane. I think that last picture of Good Shepard Church was really a picture of the original church but not on Broadway but one block west. In the fifties, it was called Good Shepard Chapel. It was right next to the school. I could be wrong.

I found your site through Facebook and am happy to see the wonderful work you have done documenting the evolution of such a unique neighborhood. I lived in Inwood my entire childhood, and even in my adult years remain only 2 miles north. I consider myself still very much a member of the Inwood community, and applaud you on your work. I look forward to seeing much much more.