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I saw this on the Internet and thought I would post it on this site. In 1904 the Detroit Publishing Co. took a photo of Times Square (then called Longacre Square) on an 8" X 10" glass negative so the detail is very good. I saw the original here:
http://www.shorpy.com/node/7407?size=_original

The dealership (factory branch?) was located on 1540 Broadway.

I have cropped and resized the photo and you can see it below. Click on the image to zoom in and see a larger version.

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WOW

Great picture - thank you!
Is that the Flatiron building??

Hello Randy:

No, it is the Times Building. I thought it was the Flatiron Building too, until I read this comment from the link I provided:

"One might be forgiven for mistaking the Times Building for the Flatiron. They both occupy a similar triangular-shaped block created by the angular intersection of Broadway with (in the case of the Times Building) 7th Ave. and (in the case of the Flatiron Bldg.) 5th Ave. But the top half of the two buildings are quite different."

Makes sense to me - Times Building on Times Square

The Packard New York building is still on 11th Ave.I think Ford owns it now.It still has the test track on the roof.

I see that dealership is in the Packard Dealership Directory with cropped and also colourised versions of that picture. But RogerD's version is much superior and in looking at it two things caught my attention, 1) the absence of any cars of the streets, only horse drawn vehicles and trams, and 2) George M Cohen was playing at the New York Theatre just down the street. When the dramatised story of George M Cohen's life in Yankee Doodle Dandy comes on, on the Turner Classic Movies channel on pay TV here, I often watch it.

What a picture. Thanks. Bringing it back home, George M. Cohan owned a '39 Packard Twelve limousine, which survives, in appropriately stellar condition. Jimmy Cagney was magic in 1942's Yankee Doodle Dandy. One of the great injustices of the last century is Cagney never receiving an Oscar.

Few people realize that the Broadway that begins in lower Manhattan, the Broadway the above Packard dealership is on, the storied "Great White Way," continues up the lazy river through Westchester County bedroom communities.

Any fellow ex-NYers remember Ed Jurist's wonderful Vintage Car Store in Nyack?

Thanks again.

James Cagney DID win the Oscar for "ankee Doodle Dandy"

To Ozstatman:

If you like the quality of the cropped photo I've shown, then you would love the quality of the full-size photo in the link I provided.

Regarding the colorized version. The Detroit Publishing Co. was in business to produce postcards - either travel scenes, resorts, buildings,hotels and the like. A photo would be taken and then colorized for the printing process. The colorized version must be from a postcard and the original photo has all the detail.

--Roger--

Su8overdrive askes: Any fellow ex-NYers remember Ed Jurist's wonderful Vintage Car Store in Nyack?

Sure, I used to visit it often, on South Broadway in an old dealership building with the office area on a balcony at the rear overlooking the display area. I bought my 34 Packard from Ed Jurist's Vintage Car Store back in 1963. The car was sold originally by Packard-Brooklyn (Atlantic Ave) and serviced by them regularly right up until a year before I bought it. I'm not a NYer but live in northern NJ just a few miles south of Nyack. It was a great place to visit, often filled with many exotics for sale.

Adjacent to my 34 Eight Sedan was a 35 or 36 Super 8 convertible coupe for sale for the same (shockingly low in today's perspective) price. Much as I'd rather had the convertible, the clincher for the 34 Sedan was that it was complete (the convertible was in pretty rough shape a not running, missing some parts), on consignment from the original owner, and I could drive it home which was a major factor as I didn't have the $ for a transporter.

On a return visit a while later, Ed had a 1953 Derham formal sedan in pristine condition. He wanted $10,000 for it (this back in the mid-60s). That was about 10 times what I paid for the 34. The 35 or 36 Super 8 convertible was gone.

Here's a fairly recent photo (by Jim Pearsall I believe) of the uptown Broadway Packard building. Also a vintage photo of the (still in use) 11th Ave NYC facility.

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