Every Building on Every Block: A Time Capsule of 1930s New York

In the late 1930s and early 1940s, New York City sent photographers to every building in every borough in an attempt to make property tax assessments fairer and more accurate.

The result was more than 700,000 black-and-white snapshots of everything from fashionable apartment buildings in Manhattan to this out-of-the-way diner on Staten Island.

The city recently had the images digitized.

(may be behind a pay wall)


https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/28/nyregion/nyc-property-tax-photos.html