NEIGHBORHOOD TIME TRAVELING, PT. 9: "THE HOUSE ON 92ND STREET" (1945)

The House on 92nd Street, the true story of a Nazi spy ring in New York, was partly filmed on location about a 25 minute walk from our apartment. But while taking photos at that spot, I realized the filmmakers had indulged in some movie trickery. But more on that later.

Well, there's an establishing shot for you. You don't even need the street signs to know you're in New York -- the fires escapes do the job. By the way, don't you like how you can look at just one of those signs to know what corner you're on? 

Those old apartments in the movie are gone, and with them the fire escapes (starting in the 1970s, all new buildings were required to install indoor sprinklers). Now it looks like Anywhere, USA. The charming, informative street signs are now generic.  Do you find them appreciably easier to read? I don't.

The German-American working undercover for the FBI walks past a handsome townhouse on his way to meet his Nazi contact.

Apart from a likely power washing at some point, the townhouse looks the same, as do the buildings across the street. The fence seems to be the original, too. Thank God some things don't change. Well, the city did plant a couple of trees.

Next door is the house fronting for a Nazi spy ring. Yikes! Let's hope they've moved out since then.

Moved out? The damn thing's gone. Why didn't it qualify for some kind of "Historic Landmark" designation? Temporary scaffolding makes this even less photogenic.

I'm cheating with a couple of screenshots since Columbus Circle isn't really in my neighborhood. But I couldn't resist sharing this charming scene. Look at the street cars! On the corner of Broadway and West 57th is a Ruppert Beer sign with a clock. (It's always time for a glass of Ruppert!). What looks like a junk peddler is in the right foreground. Or maybe he's a delivery guy for a dry cleaner. Whatever he is, it all looks good to me! 

Not anymore it doesn't. Everything other than the statue of Columbus is gone -- including that section of West 57th, which is now the location of the Deutsche Bank Center, formerly the Time Warner Center. The tall building on the right is the Trump International Hotel & Tower. Raise your hand if you see anything charming here. Why did they get rid of the streetcars?!

Still on Columbus Circle. Don't be fooled by the distinguished-looking gentleman played by Leo G. Carroll. He's selling some top-secret info to the Nazis. Note the Liggett's pharmacy to the left. At first, I thought this was the east side of the street, until I realized Central Park was in the background. That could mean only one thing...

Where Liggett's was -- on the corner West 57th -- is now the entrance of the Duetsche Bank Center. No wonder I couldn't find it! Off-topic: when was the last time you saw a Liggett's Pharmacy? Do they even exist anymore?

And we're back to our first location, where our hero is now driving away from Nazi headquarters, not realizing that Leo G. Carroll and another spy are walking toward it. Once again, Central Park is in the background...

... Which means The House on 92nd Street was actually filmed on 93rd Street! Fooled all you out-towners, hunh? Oh, and they've installed traffic lights, an alternate side of the street parking sign, and a WALK/DON'T WALK signal since 1945. 

To answer your obvious question, maybe The House on 93rd Street doesn't have the same ring to it. And free advice to all urban planners out there: bring back those old-school street signs!

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NEIGHBORHOOD TIME TRAVELING, PT. 8: "NAKED CITY" (SEASON 3, EPISODE 5)

 You can count on one hand the number of Naked City episodes shot in the Upper East Side. Often, there are plenty of obvious differences between then and now. 

Not so much for the episode titled "A Wednesday Night Story" starring David Jansen. So few, I debated whether to even make the effort of taking the photos. But when most of the shooting location was at the end of my block, there was really no excuse to be lazy.

The very first shot of the episode is of Carl Schurz Park at 84th and East End Avenue. Carl Schurz was, among other things, the editor of the New York Post, a founder of the Republican Party, and the senator from Missouri. He was played by Edward G. Robinson in John Ford's Cheyenne Autumn. Maybe it should be renamed Edward G. Robinson Park.

You didn't expect me to have a camera crane to get a similar shot, did you? It looks to me there are fewer trees now than in 1961, but maybe that's just the angle. Otherwise, except for the painted crosswalks, it's more or less the same.

A chauffeur opens the door for a governess and her young charge on the corner just outside the park. You can just about make out the Chapin School on the left, and an apartment building on the right.

The limo is replaced by a city-owned SUV, and governesses are now known as nannies. But Chapin and the apartment building remain.

The governess and the spoiled brat walk from the car to the park entrance.

Trees now hide the apartment building visible on the left rear of the previous photo. Little fences surround the trees now. The NO PARKING street-cleaning sign is different but still gets the same message across. I told you there wasn't much of a difference between then and now.

The sign on the gate reads PRIVATE PARK PUBLIC NOT ADMITTED. But luckily our girl has a key. Such is the good life on the Upper East Side.

The gate was gone before I moved to the neighborhood in 1983, and the NO ADMITTANCE sign was likely a prop for the show. That thick post, which can go down when necessary, is a recent addition to keep unauthorized vehicles (i.e., terrorists) out of the park.

Now we're inside the park's Catbird Playground. The swing set on the left is similar to the one when our daughter played here throughout her childhood. In the rear of the shot is a storage building for the park's maintenance crew.

A few years ago, the playground was closed to install new equipment. The swings are radically different, and a checkerboard pattern replaced the asphalt. Benches have been installed to give parents a break. In the far rear left are tables to picnic or play chess and checkers. The trees on the right haven't gone anywhere, although the blocks that used to be around them are gone. (The apartment building on the left was seen on another Naked City episode, examined here.)

Our heroes are on the path to the right of the swing set area. Behind the fence on the right is an area where sprinklers provide relief during hot summer days. Kids only, unfortunately.

New benches on both sides of the path and the rear right, along with a fence on the left. The sprinkler area is still there. I'm no arborist, but I think that's a new tree on the rear left, too. Pardon the puddle in the middle -- we've been having thunderstorms of late. 

The kid briefly runs off to the middle of the playground, which should be lousy with children in the middle of the day. But not when the Naked City crew takes over for a few hours.

The round track in the previous screenshot is gone. The benches have been replaced by a mini-walking bridge for the kiddies. A small sliding board has taken the place of a larger one; new trees line the area. And if you're wondering why it's so empty, I had to take these photos at 7:00 a.m. before anybody arrived. Otherwise, nannies and parents would have called the cops on the creepy old guy taking pictures of the children.

The governess's employees live in the sleek apartment building at the north end of East End Avenue across the street from the FDR Drive and the East River. Look at that four-wheeled yacht pulling up! That thing easily gets seven miles per gallon. Note the thin leaning tree to the right of the entryway roof.

That thin leaning tree has grown thicker over the years, as have most of us (except me). A nice brick wall replaces the wire fence that surrounds the plants. The roof over the entryway has been refurbished but is essentially the same, while the poles are now black. 

Nope, not a whole lot of change in the last 60 years. That's the way we Upper East Siders like it. 

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NEIGHBORHOOD TIME-TRAVELING, PT. 7: "CLOSE-UP" (1946)

 When I started watching Close-Up, the 1948 movie about a Nazi war criminal and the newsreel cameraman who films him, it was a delight to discover it was filmed in New York. 

But I snapped to attention when learning Mr. Nazi was going to escape the law via seaplane from the East River at 93rd Street. That's my neighborhood!  

It was time for another now and then comparison.

The Nazi and his cohort, after kidnapping our hero, turn onto 1st Avenue from 92nd St in front of Greenberg & Son Tires. We have a good view of a Mobilgas station (yes, that's how the brand name was spelled for decades). Note the clothesline hanging from the apartment -- cheaper than buying a dryer. Look to the last group of apartment buildings in the background on the southeast side. That's where I lived from 1983 to 1990, walking up and down five flights of stairs every day. No wonder my quads and calves are in such superb condition!

Today, the same area is a mix of the old and new. The stores and apartment buildings on the north side were replaced by the Stanley Issacs public housing complex, currently behind scaffolding and a protective fence. The gas station on the south side is now an apartment building with businesses on the first floor. But the brownstones on the next two blocks remain. That high rise on the far right used to be another gas station which was still there when I lived on York Avenue.

Now we have a view of the west side of 1st Avenue. Having left the car, the guys walk north. Likely to the surprise of most locals today, 1st Avenue used to be a two-way street (now it runs north exclusively). Note how the street used to be "paved" with beautiful Belgian blocks, kind of the flat cousin of cobblestones. See the building in the background with the archway entrance to the left of the Nazi in the homburg hat? That was Public School 151. 

Dull pavement replaced the Belgian blocks. Dull high rise on the north side replaced the brownstones. On the south side of 92nd, some of the old buildings remain, although a grocery store has replaced the school, which moved to East 88th long ago. And look at those high rises towering over the area! That could be any city -- no personality at all.

The three guys turn east onto 93rd, so I'm pegging this shot to be about one building east of the corner of 1st Avenue. What appears to be a basket of clothes is left unattended outside Planet Quality Laundry. An adolescent girl plays with a yo-yo on her building's stoop as a woman goes out on errands. By the way, do kids play with yo-yos anymore? Does anybody still make yo-yos?

Uhh... well, although it's difficult to see behind the temporary fence, scaffolding and netting, this whole block is public housing now.

The three guys (only one of whom is visible here) are now in the middle of 93rd. Until five years before Close-Up's production, this was the location of Adam Happel Ironworks. It was likely still a factory of some sort in 1948.

Not much to see here, I guess...

Aaaaand... further east on 93rd. This seems to be the Sanitation garage. (A garbage truck almost plows into the guys as they approach the corner. This kind of thing still happens occasionally.) You might as well look at the previous photo to get an idea of what it looks like now, so let's move on.

We're near the very end of East 93rd. Keep it under your hat, but a shootout is going to happen momentarily inside that coal storage building. The Nazi will escape, with our hero in hot, or at least very warm, pursuit.

Well, at least this portion of the block provides something slightly different to look at.

As a cool Ford Woodie passes by, our hero runs from the coal storage building and across East End Avenue. Note the water tower in the left background. You still see these all over Manhattan, as ubiquitous as fire escapes.

The coal garage has been replaced by yet another high rise. You can see the public housing in the background. The brick driveway in the foreground of the previous photo is gone due to the construction of a road that serves as an on/off ramp for the FDR Drive. I positioned myself there during a brief lull in traffic. You're welcome.

The chase is about to continue across the Franklin Delano Roosevelt East River Drive, a/k/a The FDR. The impressive building in the background belongs to New York Edison Company, later renamed Consolidated Edison, a/k/a Con Ed. The pillar on the left is the dedication to the Drive's construction in 1936, when it was called simply the East River Drive. The building behind the pillar is the Riverside Fuel Co. A humble traffic light on the right seems unnecessary. Seems like a pleasure to drive here, right?

Yikes! What a difference eight decades makes. A cement divider now keeps the north-and southbound traffic apart, eliminating the need for the traffic light. The Riverside Fuel Co. has been replaced by the public housing that dwarfs the once-majestic pillar on the left. The Edison building in the previous photo is also long gone, because who wants beautiful buildings when dull is so much more desirable? 

Following a shoot-out between the cops and the Nazi, our hero takes a breather. Across the East River are two bridges: the Triborough in the foreground, and the Hell Gate behind it.

Well, at least the bridges are still there. But it wouldn't be New York City without a name change honoring a Democrat. Behold in the foreground the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge, so renamed in 2008. Other than traffic reporters, everybody still calls it the Triborough. The buildings on the left side of the island in front of the bridge seem to be gone, as trees have been planted there. What's puzzling is that the bridge now has suspension wires where none existed before. If anyone has an explanation, don't be shy.

Our hero is now on the other side of the path with his wacky sidekick. Again, the lack of traffic is beautiful, allowing us a good view of the Municipal Asphalt Plant, built in 1944. I bet you think it's gone now.

Nope! But the city shut it down in 1968. In 1984, it was reconstructed as the cleverly-named Asphalt Green, which, to quote its website, is "a nonprofit organization that provides high-quality sports, swim, and fitness instruction and programs to New York City children and adults." My wife goes there at least three times a week for various classes; I don't. Note the overpass blocking its view. We'll get to that in a moment.

Our hero can't seem to decide which side of the path he wants to be on. That's his boss talking to him. Behind them is the Marine Transfer Station, built in 1940, where the city's garbage was put on barges to be taken somewhere New Yorkers didn't want to know from. It was torn down in the 1990s. Today, things are different...

Construction on a gleaming NEW waste transfer was approved during the end of Mayor Mike Bloomberg's administration and completed in March 2019. The overpass behind it is for the benefit of garbage trucks dumping their load there. Note that the straight fence in the previous photo is now curved, and new greenery (brown in January) is protected by a little wooden fence. We'll take nature anywhere we can.

At Close-Up's fadeout, the wacky newsreel assistant falls into the sidecar of the police motorcycle as it zooms down John Finley Walkway. Always leave 'em laughing, right? The pillar in the background on the left is the twin of the other one seen an earlier photo. And I'm pretty sure the NYPD no longer uses those sidecar cycles. Man, that Edison building is scary massive.

 The smooth path is now hexagonal tiles. Note the auto overpass on the FDR Drive in the background. The single bench in the previous photo has been replaced by two facing each other in an area carved out from the lawn. The drab white building in the center-left background is Metropolitan Hospital. The brownish apartment building on the right was built in 2018. The sliver of the white building you see to its right was (and perhaps still is) connected in some way to Mt. Sinai Hospital. Believe it or not, my daughter took tennis lessons on its roof. At least if somebody fell off, there were medical personnel available. 

Oh, and I haven't seen any cops pursue Nazis trying to escape in seaplanes here anymore. So there's one good change.

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Just for the heck of it, here's a city tax property photo of 1st Avenue at 90th Street taken in 1939, seven years before the release of Close-Up. 

The building second from the right is where I lived for seven years. A machine shop can be seen on the first floor. For the first few years I lived there, it was a bodega that also dealt drugs. A sixth floor was added several years ago, and the long railroad-style apartments have been cut in half to double their number and triple the rent. 

I moved there 35 years after the release of Close-Up; over forty years have elapsed since then. Good Lord.