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The New York TimesMachine
WARNING: This is a positive article about The New York Times. Yes, I am feeling ok, but thanks for asking. Reader discretion is advised.
The other day I saw this and retweeted it:
In 1976 an NYT food critic took Colonel Sanders to a @kfc in Manhattan and he hated everything about it https://t.co/3AoJtcJvAp
— Liam Stack (@liamstack) August 24, 2016
New York Times reporter Liam Stack linked to a fascinating 1976 tale of Colonel Sanders visiting, and hating, a Kentucky Fried Chicken location in Manhattan. It’s a great article, and you can vividly picture an angry Colonel Sanders taking apart what had become the corporate KFC (current awful KFC TV commercials notwithstanding), in “Yankee” New York City.
The webpage gives you the option to “View Page in TimesMachine.” I clicked and discovered for the first time an amazing treasure trove, over 150 years of original issues of The New York Times. In what had to have been a Herculean effort, every page has been scanned, and every article has been made into a PDF. Every single word, ever, in digital. Think about how many articles are in a newspaper (or were, before news went online). Kudos to whomever was a part of this massive project.
No, I am not interested in tracking the liberalization of the newspaper through the years. That would take way too many Ricochet articles. I read through this website with a different eye. I am a student of pop culture and I especially love old advertising. The TimesMachine is like a birthday present. It’s really informative to read whole newspapers in different decades to really see how times, tastes, and what’s acceptable have changed. You won’t believe how women are talked to/about, and you’ll marvel in the fact that The New York Times used to run ads for cigarettes and Times Square porno theaters.
The New York TimesMachine is also tailor made for someone like me, who grew up on Long Island in the 1970s. Reading through issues in the ’70s, you encounter many ads for stores like Sam Goody (records and tapes) and Alexander’s (department store). Stores I used to go to as a child. Stores that are now only memories.
(Cameron Gray trivia: The first 8-track tape I bought was the “Grease” soundtrack. The first album I bought was “Pac-Man Fever” by Buckner and Garcia. Both purchased at Sam Goody.)
We have all had the “I’ve reached the end of the Internet” feeling. The New York TimesMachine is the antidote to that.
Published in General
A favorable post about the New York Times? What’s next? A favorable post quoting The Village Voice? It can’t happen here.
Let’s all order a Vermouth on the rocks with a twist and drink to world peace.
I remember Col. Sanders said KFC’s mashed potatoes tasted like wallpaper paste.
Makes sense. Potato starch makes up most generic wallpaper paste.
What a gift you’ve given me, Cameron! My dad was a NYT reporter, and I immediately went to the TimeMachine and looked up his old articles. There they all are, in situ beside the ads for corsets and whatnot; a marvel! I shared the link with my kids so they can see what their old granddad got up to, back in the day.
What a great deal! Now we can all look up and enjoy Walter Duranty’s wonderful June 1931 NYT Pulitzer Prize winning articles about the glorious, famine-free USSR!
That is awesome, thank you Kate.
Cameron
This is amazing, but I’m not willing to subscribe to this paper after canceling in 2004. Their clear desire for us to fail in Iraq while my son was there sickened me.