Greenwich Village, New York Snowstorm, and Coney Island

This home movie from the Wathen Collection, filmed in 1944, likely in Kodachrome with some faded color, captures three distinct vignettes of wartime New York City life. First, “Greenwich Village Artists Street Exhibition” (50 feet) showcases Washington Square Arch, where artists display paintings on building walls and stands. Soldiers film the scene, a woman in a pink jacket poses, and a street artist sketches amid spectators, with a fleeting Good Humor cart cameo. Next, a West Side Manhattan courtyard near 179th Street, just north of the George Washington Bridge, features Gyp, Bill, and an older man mugging for the camera amid ivy arbors and tidy gardens, with pans to Riverside Drive and the bridge. “Springtime at Coney Island 1944” bursts with boardwalk crowds, Steeplechase and Wonder Wheel rides, and blanket-tossing on the beach—soldiers and sailors dot the festive scene, one adjusting his sock. Finally, a New York snowstorm blankets University Place and East 10th Street, with a stuck Omnibus bus, kids sledding, a bonfire in the snow, and the Hotel Albert sign looming; suburban and Washington Square snow play rounds it out. A vibrant, shaky slice of 1940s urban life, blending art, leisure, and winter resilience.