Actual film footage shot from a moving train by Thomas Edison, circa 1899. The train is traveling from Brooklyn to Manhattan. I’m not a New York native but I thought this seemed pretty freakin’ cool so I thought I’d share.
Sidenote: this film footage sold for $22.50 from the Edison Film Gallery.
Source: kottke
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My grandmother, who was born in 1868, had a home that was taken by “eminent domain” for the Brooklyn Bridge. Years later, she freaked my mother out by taking her to the site of the house (it was at the foot of one of the bridge supports – they are about the size of a city block) “The house was right here and the garden was over there…” It was a little creepy.
So some dude was strapped to the front of the train cranking the camera!?
Had YouTube existed in 1899 there’d be comments like “ok Tom, enough with the test shots, let’s see something narrative”
That was VERY cool. Thanks for sharing.
Neat. The older I get the more I appreciate historical stuff like that
Who else had the theme song from “Taxi” go through their head?
Me! Someone needs to dub that in. (hint hint)
Mmmm i hate to be all negative but whats so great about this video? Yeah so what if Edison took the video its just a train going over a bridge and everything is in black and white…
Kids today.
The film is great for two reasons:
1. It was shot in 1899. Thus it was a really really early motion picture. So there’s plenty of historical significance there.
2. How often do you get to see a first hand motion picture of what it was like around the turn of the 20th century?
Not only that, but by Thomas Edison!!
Agreed – in fact I think it would have been awesome for on the 100th anniversary for someone to film the same run. To see what has changed and what hasn’t.
It was really cool and interesting.
everything is in black and….are you trolling? if not, how old are you?
When does it come out on hidef blueray?
Spielberg is going to edit it and add Ewoks and guys with walkie talkies.
Sure, the content isn’t much (and yes, now that you mention it, it DID remind me of the opening credits of TAXI), but when you consider how it was shot…
The speed was steady (none of that funky high-speed stuff you normally see in old silent movies) and the picture was remarkably clear. And it was 1899! It’s fascinating to see a bit of NYC back then as well as a good bit of camera work.
I dunno…just me…would’ve been boring but for how and when it was shot…it was amazing.
Thanks for sharing. This was the New York of Theodore Roosevelt and Jacob Riis. It is important, frazier, because IT IS a moving picutre from 1899! Remember, there was not even a practical airplane then and very few motor cars. Edison’s technology lets us see things in motion for the first time instead of just looking at photographs. Personally I want to look up that Edison Film Library and see what they have on the Galveston Hurricane of 1900.
What makes it special is that it’s one of the first moving pictures ever made.
I’ve often wondered if everything really was covered in soot in those days, or if there’s something about the quality of photos made back then where it only looks like that.
A little of both. Coal dust is nasty, sticks-to-everything stuff, but mainly the film (celluloid film stock) wasn’t the same type of film we are familiar with and captured light differently.
Very, very cool! Wish we could see more of the people on the platform.
My only wish would be that it were a film from a street car of the time to see action on the street. Horses, vendors, business fronts and how people were dressed. Nice bit of film though. Was that a station at the end?
Re street cars et al., if you watch the film on YouTube, the selections that come up at the end (the thumbnails at the bottom of the window) include some street scenes.
There’s a historic film taken in April 1906 from a streetcar going down Market Street in San Francisco. Very cool: kids running across the tracks, horses, carts, men in suits, etc. The spooky part is that it was taken THE DAY BEFORE the big earthquake — so it’s weird to think how different things looked 24 hrs later, and wonder how many of the people in the film were still alive then. (If you Google “market street film 1906,” you’ll get a number of options for viewing it.)
Wow. This is really neat.
Frazier, if you look around the margins of the frame you can see horses and buggies as well as people – not to mention the industry, the advertisements on the buildings, and the streets.
This is the way things really looked in 1899 . . . my grandmother was 9 years old and I am no spring chicken. You don’t have many opportunities to see that era in motion. Make the most of it.
Play it to the end and click on some of the other menu choices.
“Lower Broadway 1902″ is amazing. The ‘modern’ cable cars moving among pedestrians and TONS of horse drawn vehicles — cabs, horse drawn omnibuses, a few private vehicles, and delivery wagons, including one incredibly overloaded dray — and one overworked and pretty ineffectual traffic cop in the old NYC police frock coat and tin pot helmet. Absolutely no motor vehicles anywhere to be seen.
One thing a horsey person notices immediately is how underbred (and overworked) most of the horses look. There were so many of them compared to today, the horses we have now are by and large pampered pets or high end athletes. These horses were everyday work horses — the equivalent of a Toyota Corolla or an Econoline van. And sadly treated as disposable.
But talk about pollution! Horse manure in those days was a serious sanitation and public health problem, there was just so much of it!
My Great Grandfather walked over this bridge the first day it opened. He would have been in his mid 20′s at the time.