Over 870,000 photos from the New York Municipal Archive have been scanned and recently been made available online. The total archive exceeds 2.2 million images, and provides a document of life in New York since the advent of photography. I found it especially interesting to put these streets into Google Maps and compare.

Above image:
May 18, 1940: 6 Ave. and 40 St, man reads a newspaper with the headline: “Nazi Army Now 75 Miles From Paris”

July 29, 1908: Workers digging in the street on the north side of Delancey St. 

June 5, 1908: The Manhattan Bridge being built, as seen from Washington St. in Brooklyn

Oct. 7, 1914: Painters suspended from wires on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York

Circa 1890: A pair of girls walking east along 42 St.

Oct. 2, 1930: workers assembling the road on 28th Street 

Dec. 22, 1936: A man looking at the Hudson River from the New York tower of the George Washington Bridge

Images courtesy of the New York City Municipal Archive via Buzzfeed