I’ve been watching quite a few of these old New York films from different vintages. Maybe we’ll do a few, one per day. This on was shot in 1943 by Don Kelley. There’s some nice shots of the double-decker buses that ran up and down 5th Avenue, and that Jim Brophy wrote up here.
The lack of traffic is amazing.
It’s amazing how well wartime fuel rationing thins out traffic.
My mother remembered witnessing a black-market gas transaction, which scared her a bit. Any estimates of the total amount lost this way? There was also the usual pilfering near the front, which is where the Army acronym STEAL comes from: Strategic Transfer of Equipment to Alternate Locations. Patton, for example, notoriously winked at this sort of thing during his drive across France..
Tires too.
Exactly. “1943” says it all.
So cool. I want to visit a time where men wore suits and hats, and ladies wore dresses and heels. Although I guess if I’d been there, I would have been elsewhere if you know what I mean.
Also I think I see some of these Model A Checker cabs around 10:40, only one exists today. I knew I’d read about that somewhere, turns out some guy named Paul wrote an article on TTAC 🙂
Where’s the link to the video? It isn’t displaying on my iPhone.
https://youtu.be/p6_Wtt-cCzc
Didn’t show up on mobile chrome either until I selected desktop view.
Thanks, Jer! 🙂
great find. what surprises me is how well-dressed everyone is!
If you like sharp suits, neat hats and nicely dressed ladies, check out the Fedora Lounge. FedoraLounge.com
My dad lived in NYC from about 1930 until 42 or so. Yes, gas rationing no doubt cut down on a lot of driving, especially in a city with a subway system like NYC.
Dad had loved NYC until the war. and the blackout, started. U-boats were cruising right off the harbor, so the city was blacked out so ship traffic would not be silhouetted against city lights, offering the U-boats an easy target. The blackout was why he pulled up stakes and moved to Detroit.
Unlike the West Coast, the East was tardy in enforcing coastal urban blackouts, which enabled the U-boat “Happy Times” of easy littoral shipping kills (silhouetted by city lights). Ironically, the West Coast had less to fear, as the Japanese weren’t interested in cargo shipping and only did some nuisance attacks.
Of course you have more accidents and crime with blackouts, and less night-life, hence the reluctance.
The distance from San Francisco to Japan is about 2,000 miles more than the distance from New York to Western France, where the U-boats were based; this may have also contributed to the relative lack of Japanese submarine activity on the West Coast.
According to Wiki, 10 Japanese subs operated off the West Coast and did some damage:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Theater_(World_War_II)#Submarine_operations
However, their focus was on destroying the Pacific Fleet, and their submarine doctrine emphasized attacks on warships, which ironically, was more ethical than the US, British, and German policy of sinking civilian ships. Adm. Nimitz spoke up in defense of Karl Dönitz’s conduct during the Nuremberg Trials by admitting he was no less guilty of unrestricted submarine warfare.
Gasoline was rationed in 1942 and ended by August 1945 with stickers distributed to car owners. Most civilians got an A sticker which was three or four gallons per week while B stickers went to war workers who got eight gallons per week. Truckers, emergency vehicles and VIP’s got special stickers.
Wow, I’m glad I didn’t see this until this morning, it would have really interrupted my day yesterday. I get sucked into films like these, and never more than when they are in color.
My father was born in Manhattan back in April 1926. I’ll have to show this video to him tomorrow. He may not recognize much of it since he joined the Army in April 1943 down in Manhattan. I know his father, my grandfather, did not have a car being in New York with buses and subway.
I mean recognize traffic not Manhattan. He didn’t set foot back in Manhattan until May 1946.
I loved the toy sailboats in Central Park. Some moments of relaxation to ease the nerves about the war abroad. Beautiful movie.
If cars broke down during this era, it must have been difficult to get parts unless there was stock in inventory somewhere, as the factories were all busy making planes and weapons.
If this is 1943, then that’s the Bowery – Third avenue ‘El’. Look how the Chrysler Building stands out as we approach 42nd Street! I want a longer ride!
As to traffic — you got 4 gallons a week with an ‘A’ sticker. If you assume an average of 12-14 gallons / mile in the city (or maybe even 16 in a 1939 Studebaker Champion with freewheeling and overdrive), well, you’re just not going to waste that 50-miles worth of gas on joy rides!
What is amazing to me is how *similar* it is to NYC of today in so many ways – as frightened as I am of the very real hypergentrification that is happening, so many of the older edifices and places remain, as well as a way of living. Really cool to see this. Also the weird “Batmobile” Checker cab pops up in a couple of places.
Gas was plentiful, that wasn’t the problem.
Rubber was. The Axis controlled most of the world’s natural rubber sources, so we had to develop synthetic rubber production very quickly and devote virtually all of it to military needs. So the consumer had to make existing tires last, as those were rationed even more tightly than gas.
In the United Kingdom, it was even more severe as fuel for private use was unavailable from 1942 till the end of the war. Of course, rationing of just about everything was much tighter than it was over here, and didn’t end in some cases until the mid-1950’s.
The Germans were very much into synthetic rubber production themselves, making those factories important targets for Allied bombing.
There was also a 35 mph national speed limit during the war, no doubt for fuel/tire conservation. My grandparents were farmers and so they were fairly high up the chain of importance when it came to rationing. My mother remembers those days but never recalled her family having difficulty getting what they needed.
Gasoline may have been plentiful, but ration cards for the fuel were not; tires were difficult to replace as rubber was critical for the war effort. The baldness of tires by 1945 would make safety officials of today blanch. People didn’t drive unless they needed to do so.
I feel bad for those poor souls out in the heartland who had to drive 45-50 miles or more to get their crops to market and got no more ration stamps than those people in the cities back East whose stamps would last a month or more.
One of my recurring Go-Back-In-Time fantasies is about dropping into Middle America ca. 1944, and buying a bunch of Cadillac V16s and Packard Twin Sixes up on blocks and going for $100 or so …
While Dad was away, we lived in a small town along with my grandmother and her mother, and since Mom had me and my new baby sister she got unlimited milk, eggs and bread rations, and a generous sugar allowance too. The downside of that was a steady diet of egg-custard bread pudding. I was in my 60s before I could stand to eat sweet custard again.