An Italian spaghetti house and a German health food store next to each other on 86th St. in New York, January 22, 1942.
Beverley Nichols, an English writer, described the NYC of 1940s:
More than ever before, as the shop windows filed past in a glittering parade, there was the sense of New York as a great international city to which all the ends of the world had come.
London used to be like that, but somehow one had forgotten it, so long had it been since the Hispanos and Isottas had glided down Piccadilly, so many aeons since the tropical fruit had glowed in the Bond Street windows.
Coming from that sort of London to America, in the old days, New York had seemed just, American; not typical of the continent, maybe, but American first and foremost. Now it was the centre of the world.
Photo: Rare Historical Photos
