A Journey Back to Old New York

A couple of years back, The Museum of Modern Art performed a digital restoration on some travelogue footage of New York City that was shot in 1911. They did a great job with it, and the video was widely disseminated—you may have seen it at the time or in the months since.

Now, a Swedish company called Svenska Biografteatern has done even more work on the footage, giving it a higher frame rate and resolution (4K) and a subtle color tinting.

For anyone who loves New York (or dreams of time travel), it makes for a magical eight-minute journey into the past.

Cladrite Classics: A Thousand Million Billion Points of Light

The Empire State Building remains one of our favorite New York City icons. Even after 30 years living in Manhattan, there are still occasions, when we’re out for a stroll on a crisp autumn evening, that we look up at that grand old structure and think, “Wow—we live in New York City!”

We especially love the fact that when you look up, you can see flash bulbs going off from the observation deck on the 108th floor. It warms our heart to see these small bursts of illumination; we feel a kind of connection to those tourists from every corner of the globe, situated as they are high above the greatest city in the world, capturing memories that will last a lifetime.

How many flashes have gone off from that platform over the past eighty-some years? Millions? Billions?

Those little flashes also makes us chuckle, of course, since they accomplish precisely nothing. It would take a terribly powerful flash, indeed, to reach out from the top of the Empire State Building and illuminate the vast city below, or even a small patch of it.

You can see the flashes of light we’re referring to in the shakycam video below, if you watch carefully.

Enjoy.

A thousand million billion points of light

The Empire State Building remains one of our favorite New York City icons. Even after 28 years living in Manhattan, there are occasions, when we’re out for a stroll on a crisp autumn evening, that we look up at that grand old structure and think, “Wow—we live in New York City!”

We especially love the fact that you can look up and see flash bulbs going off from the observation deck on the 108th floor. It warms our heart to see these small bursts of illumination; we feel a kind of connection to those tourists from every corner of the globe, situated as they are high above the greatest city in the world, capturing memories that will last a lifetime.

How many flashes have gone off from that platform over the past eighty years? Millions? Billions?

Those little flashes also makes us chuckle, of course, since they accomplish precisely nothing. It would take a terribly powerful flash, indeed, to reach out from the top of the Empire State Building and illuminate the vast city below, or even a small patch of it.

You can see the flashes of light we’re referring to in the video below, if you look closely and watch carefully.

Enjoy.