Incredible footage from then and now reveals New York in its infancy - before the World Trade Center replaced the 'bustling immigrant enclave' of Little Syria and Times Square was overrun with advertisements LEDs and tourists.

New York City Then and Now contains images taken between 1930 and 1940 for the Tax Department. The tax office set out to document every piece of real estate in the city's five boroughs. Author Jamie McDonald matched the photos with the locations, showing what they look like today.

By Sadie Whitelocks for Dailymail.com

Updated: 1:20 PM BST, Aug 27, 2023

Advertisement < p class="mol-para-with-font mol-style-bold"> Fascinating new book reveals how little or how much New York has changed over the past century, with juxtaposed black and white images to clichés of today.

Jamie McDonald, the author of New York City Yesterday and Today, sifted through hundreds of images taken mostly between 1930 and 1940 for tax purposes. department for the purpose of documenting virtually all real estate in the city's five boroughs; Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens and Staten Island.

He notes in the introduction that at one point, " nearly 1,000 employees worked on the project, mostly auditors and accountants... [but] only 32 photographers took the pictures.'

An area that has The northern triangle of Times Square, known as Duffy Square, has evolved somewhat thanks to the invention of LED screens. Of the evolution of signage in the neighborhood, McDonald writes: “Neon lights and light bulbs have been replaced by video screens and fiber optics. Incidentally, Coca-Cola still has a place here, for decades.'

Another stark contrast can be seen when the We compare an image of the World Trade Center complex with the “Little Syria” district that existed before. McDonald's says he now has "almost nothing left to...