I love seeing old photos online. This one is from February 2, 1908, a Suffragette meeting in Union Square in NYC. I’m thinking the background building are on Union Square East/Park Avenue. Sort of where the old Tammany Hall building is today. I don’t see the Suffragettes, they must be behind the camera, on a stage or something.
Here is a current image of what I believe the background is in the 1908 photo. That building with the dome over it is the final Tammany Hall building at 44 Union Square East (also 100 East 17th Street). That Tammany Hall building was built in 1929, the previous location was on 14th Street, near 3rd Avenue from 1868 to 1929. And the first, in the early 1800s was at Nassau and Frankfort Streets.
I love looking at the faces, realizing they were all born in the 1800s and thinking they were living in the most modern of times. They didn’t have tv or radio, but they had something new called “moving pictures,” silent of course, and they had electric lights and telephones. And possibly automobiles.
What I find interesting in the photo is the guy in the center, looking straight at the camera. He looks a bit scary, like he’s guilty of something – maybe murder, maybe running away from something, maybe pick pocketing – very guilty of something. Like is that Jack the Ripper? He did end up in NYC, didn’t he?
It looks like every guy is wearing a hat, which today, might be a baseball cap. And I was going to ask where the ladies are at a Suffragette meeting, but I see one a the left and one not to far behind her, by the pole.
Speaking of Suffragettes, there’s a funny show I see on PBS called “Up The Women,” from 2013, about British suffragettes in 1910, it’s a sitcom, very funny. Unfortunately, like so many British tv shows, there are a small limited number of episodes – only nine.
Till next time . . .
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