Twilight on the Upper East Side

Last night's weather: hard rain, followed by spotty rain, followed by a visually sporadic sunset made for a swirly twilight sky. I snapped shots and also noted something fleeting: an intact block long tenement row without renovation (100 years or older) on one of the busiest intersections in New York City ~ 57th Street & 2nd Avenue. Not many intact blocks left on major Manhattan thoroughfares. The north west corner is a two-story taxpayer then two unrenovated buildings are west of it on 57th St. Nine tenements run north up to 58th Street. My Pryor grandfather was born on 50th Street in 1900 and it was easy for me to get a sense of the stretch with the 2nd Avenue El running down the avenue in front of the buildings.

My Irish grandmother, Helen Ryan, was a telephone switchboard operator in a building in this row in the 1950s' & early 60s'. She took the M31 bus to work. Sitting on a stoop at the corner of86th Street & York Avenue I'd wait for her to come home.

Today, I never see an M31 go by without hearing Nan Ryan's sweet calm voice. What a contrast her personality was to the rest of the family.

Here are some twilight photos of the Upper Eastside.

Soup Meat ~ 12 Cents

"Soup Meat ~ 12 Cents," is one of many signs in the 1934 photo above facing north towards the northeast corner of 80th Street & 2nd Avenue.

Gene's Market is on the 80th Street corner (potatoes @ 5 cents @ lb.). One of five locations selling meat in this photo; right over Gene's on the second floor is Doctor Pleshette your dentist.

If you walk up to 81st Street, on the corner is the Vienna Conditorei offering fine bakery goods. If you spy the El's staircase the poster reminds you, "Iodent Toothpaste Cleans Teeth Safely." I wonder if a horse got to eat the wild grass growing on the sidewalk's corner. "Flat to Let. See Janitor, Third Floor."

I took the bottom picture yesterday morning of the same corner. Service stopped on The El in 1940.