Cameras are super cool. They allow us to take an unaltered look back, at the way things were before time got to them and transformed them.
That's why we pored over the New York Public Library's map of images of New York City last week. We loved looking at how the city looked from the 1870s onwards.
Why do we love these photos so much? Well it's fun to marvel over how the past shaped the city we know and love today.
This rings true even when we examine more recent photos, like these imgur photos of NYC from the 1980s.
What was NYC like in the 1980s?
Well, the Twin Towers were still in tact, for one. Seeing them in these images makes our heart ache no matter how much time goes by, no matter how often we glimpse their outlines in photographs and sky pan-overs in movies.
Nostalgia hurts sometimes. For us, the Twin Towers represent a much more innocent time. A time when we all lived with much less fear.
There was also so much more graffiti adorning NYC's surfaces in the 1980s than there is today. In these photos, there's colorful graffiti shouting off the subways, the backboards on basketball courts, and even on the side of coffee carts.
[anad]
In 1980 in NYC, there were dirty ads and high waisted pants. There were boomboxes the size of the people carrying them, and, as evidenced by these photographs, there was a huge amount soul.
You actually don't need us to tell you about it. Check out the photos below for yourself, and see what NYC was like in the 1980s in all its graffitied, colorful, immortalized vibrance.
Enjoy your trip back in time. We certainly did.
Check Out These Amazing Photos of NYC During the 1980s.
[via imgur]