Photo Essays
A Bear Grows in Brooklyn: Portraits of Rosie, a Furry Star of the Forties
It simply would not fly today, of course: parading a 250-pound bear through the streets of New York, stuffing her into a taxi, plying her with booze — these...
All Hail New York Taxis: Gotham Cabs and Cabbies of the 1940s
The New York City of most peoples’ imaginations usually looks and sounds like the New York of a few very distinct decades. There’s today’s post-Giuliani,...
A Night to Remember: New York Puppy Prom 2013
Prom season is in full swing—and why should humans get to have all the fun? This weekend, the dogs of New York City (and their owners) arrived in their finest...
100 Years: New York City’s Grand Central Terminal
Great public buildings don’t dwarf people; they enlarge them. And for 100 years–it opened on Feb. 2, 1913–one of the greatest has been Grand Central Terminal in...
The Empire State Building: An Icon in the City
How do you know that you’re in New York City? Yellow cabs, pushcarts, the electric pulse in the air might all tip you off – but catch sight of the Empire State...
Digging Tunnels, 14 Stories Below New York City
Far beneath the bustling streets of Manhattan, and out of sight for the majority of New York City’s 8 million residents, the largest transportation project in...
The Hard, Steady Work of Creating Beauty: Ballet Dancers Rehearse, 1936
Few things, after three-quarters of a century, manage to stay the same. But any dancer — and specifically, any ballet dancer — perusing Alfred Eisenstaedt’s...
Hard Knocks, High Kicks: LIFE With the Rockettes, 1964
In America, holiday traditions vary from family to family, town to town, state to state and region to region. When it comes to Christmas, in particular, the...
New York City Goes Green
PlaNYC will make the US' largest metropolis more eco-friendly. TIME photographer Sean Hemmerle documents the amazing efforts behind New York's plan.
LIFE in the Snow: Photos From the Great Blizzard of 1947
Something about snowstorms brings out the kid in most of us. Memories of those blessed, almost always unexpected reprieves from the drudgery of school — “snow...
Sober St. Patrick’s Day: Photos of a New Way to Celebrate
It all began in 2011 when William Reilly, an Irish-American television producer, attended the St. Patrick’s Day parade in New York City. As he looked out onto...
Photographer Spotlight: John Dominis
Some photographers are so skilled at covering a specific topic, or through the years have created so distinctive a feel in their pictures, that it’s possible to...
Photographer Spotlight: Andreas Feininger
If one had to choose a single photographer whose work would serve as a visual biography of New York City in its postwar Golden Age — when Gotham became, in a...
Photos: New York City's Iconic Taxicab Gets a Makeover
As NYC unveils the taxicab of the future Time looks back at the history of the yellow cab.
City at a Crossroads: Chicago Confronts Urban Blight, 1954
Chicago is one of the world’s great cities — and most of the cliché that have long stuck to the Windy City (so named because of its long-winded politicians, not...
Berenice Abbott: New York City in the 1930s
The photography of an early master of photography is collected in a comprehensive two-volume edition, "Berenice Abbott by Berenice Abbott", published by Steidl...
Former NYC Mayor Ed Koch, 1924-2013
Flamboyant New York City Mayor Ed Koch, the brash politician who oversaw the city’s financial recovery during three city hall terms, has died at age 88.
LIFE in Lower Manhattan: Where New York Was Born
What can anyone say about New York City that has not already been expressed by Hart Crane, Woody Allen, Elizabeth Bishop, Federico García Lorca, Walt Whitman,...
LIFE Inside a ‘Genius School,’ 1948
The phrase “genius school” has been tossed around quite a bit over the past year or so, after Cornell University won an international contest to create a...
Lights Out New York: Photos From the 1959 Blackout
In the midst of the monumental clean-up and recovery after the biggest Atlantic storm in history, Hurricane Sandy, killed hundreds of people and left a path of...
