New York City's Department of Records took its enormous collection of vintage photos of the city— 870,000 and counting — and put it online this month.
Visitors to the department's website can now see what NYC's boroughs used to look like, reaching as far back as the 1890s.
The following photos from the collection show city landmarks, development, and civic life.
A hand-colored glass lantern slide represents a street in the Lower East Side from the 1890s.
Canal Street on January 22, 1913.
The Manhattan Bridge with subway cars, June 24, 1915.
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