City - NY - It's newsworthy 1901 Tissue Paper

Colourized photo from 1901 Original title: Herald Square Photographer: Detroit Publishing Location: Broadway & W 34th St Herald Square park is located right across the street from Macy's Dept Store. Today its a small empty park, with a statue and some other things. But in its day it contained an overly ornate building that contained the New York Herald. It was build in 1895 and modelled to look like a 1476 Venetian Renaissance Palazzo del Consiglio in Verona. Along the edge of the roof stood 24 4ft tall owls, symbolising wisdom. They had green eyes, and they would light up and blink when the clock chimed. The person that owned the paper loved owls, he had these all made, he loved them so much in fact that he commissioned a 125ft statue of an owl to hold his future coffin. The building you see here was demolished in 1921 This street we are on is Broadway, known as a pedestrian friendly area. George M Cohan wrote a musical "Little Johnny Jones", which had lines that said "give my regards to Broadway", with an icon line "remember Herald Square". It was written in 1904, and was about this street. Today there isn't much. Macy's is still there. The only thing left of the Herald building are only two owl statues left and that centerpiece on the roof. The streetcars are gone, El tracks gone, those apartments on the right are all tall buildings. Oh and don't forget to admire that insane sign for a mani-pedi place on the left. One wouldn't think they did that sort of thing in this day and age. But they did, and they were really proud of it. Look at the holder for the sign. You just don't see that kind of enthusiasm for a nail salon these days.