Nostalgia on the Concourse

By Mei Lamison

Searching for Hal Morey’s Grand Central Terminal

Hal Morey’s 1930s photograph of Grand Central Terminal offers a dreamy depiction of New York City. Streams of sunlight fall down onto blurry figures below, comprising a beautifully hazy scene. Though it evokes a deep and nostalgic response from the viewer, Morey’s photograph reminds us of the things we cannot see. 

Photographs, unlike any other medium, have the power to document some form of consciousness, a past glimpse of Grand Central that is now inaccessible to us in the present. The lighting in the photograph is dramatic and the contrast is deep. The streams of sunlight pouring down through the large windows provide a divine presence. Morey’s perspective enlarges the building, making the figures appear small and insignificant, and the architecture even more glorious. Through manipulation of time, space, and light, the photographer attempted to capture the beauty and impressiveness of Grand Central Terminal. His effective documentation of feeling is so evocative that audiences can almost taste the haze, smell the smoke, feel the cold air. They can hear the subjects talking, breathing, their shoes against the hard floor. I can almost remember myself walking with them. 

When I look at the photograph, a part of me longs for a hazy 1930s morning at Grand Central Terminal. The vivid effect of Morey’s picture is not isolated. I believe most historic photographs hold strong impressions on viewers. Regardless of their context or subject matter, aged images tend to elicit universal feelings of nostalgia. This could be because of society’s emphasis on preservation, or our irrational belief that the past will always be better than the present. But whatever the reason may be, our attraction and obsession with these images are undeniably authentic.

In his 2015 New York Times article “Shadows in São Paulo,” journalist Teju Cole shares his fascination with photographer René Burri’s “Men on a Rooftop.” The photograph, taken in 1960, depicts four faceless figures on a roof. The men in the photograph nonchalantly walk towards the photographer and completely disregard the bustling city below them. Throughout the article, Cole details his journey through the streets of São Paulo and his eventual documentation of the image in a modern setting. In the text, he writes, “when I’m moved by something, I want to literally put myself in its place, the better to understand what was transformed.” Cole believes we can more so understand our emotional attachments to image through heightened context. The closer we are to the photographer’s perspective, the more we will know about the photograph itself. 

In an effort to better comprehend Morey’s piece, I followed in Cole’s direction and walked to Grand Central. Though, I will admit I didn’t hold myself to the same level of dedication Cole did in his work. I traveled to the station at night, a time when divine lighting can no longer pour through the windows. I didn’t bring a camera with me or even attempt to take a lower-quality photo with my iPhone. Instead, I simply stood in the same spot Morey did. I watched the few people that were there for a little less than five minutes. Unlike Cole, I wasn’t chasing after a photograph; I was chasing after a feeling. I was more concerned with the emotional implications of Morey’s image rather than the physical characteristics of light, framing, and perspective. 

Strangely, my experience standing in the same place as Morey offered a diluted sense of consciousness. I could better picture Morey’s perspective in my imagination than at his actual location. When there, I found myself isolating the things that had changed since the image was taken. There were the obvious physical differences, like the scaffolding surrounding the left stairs and the ropes blocking entrances to terminals that are no longer in use. There was also the blunt juxtaposition of the dreamy and magical New York in Morey’s photograph and the city’s dirty and grim reality. But, the most striking difference was the completely modern and digitized world that would have been entirely foreign to Morey. 

So much has changed since Morey took that picture. The subjects in the foreground aren’t carrying cell phones or laptops in their bags and pockets. They also aren’t wearing masks to protect themselves from a deadly virus. Now, with our world in the midst of a plague, travelers and tourists alike are gone. It feels almost as if the building lost whatever purpose it still had with the pandemic. What I saw standing in Morey’s spot wasn’t beautiful or hazy or angelic. The only thing I saw was sadness. 

I think it’s also worth noting that Morey took this photograph sometime during the Great Depression. Arguably, the photographer’s historical context is comparable to what we are experiencing now. Much like today, the economy was ravaged, the city was full of despair, and there was little hope for the future. Yet, Morey was still able to find beauty in a time of destitution. The shadows in the foreground of the image indicate the photographer used a slow shutter speed and paired it with a relatively low aperture. The film would have been exposed for a longer period, capturing light in a way the human eye can’t perceive. Morey altered his own reality to provide a break from widespread despair, finding beauty in a city struck by loss. Still, when I look at the photograph now, I can’t help but think of all the things Morey and his subjects don’t know. They are living in an entirely different world, completely and blissfully ignorant of what is to come. To us, the events they have yet to experience are inevitable. But to them, in that documented moment, history is still in the making. Our past is their future. No photograph, no matter how vivid, can capture that impending timeline.

Again, photographs reveal more of what we don’t know than what we do. In the foreground of Morey’s image, viewers are met with dark ominous figures. Most of them are backlit and blurred, absent of facial and other identifying features. They similarly compare to the four backlit and unidentified men in Burri’s image. Viewers will never know who these people were, where they were going, or why they were there. Cole argues unknown subjects add to photography: “discovering all that can be known about a work of art, what cannot be known is honored even more. We come right up to the edge and can go no farther.” Cole explains that mystery adds to the allurement and uniqueness of a photograph. Perhaps the vagueness of a photograph allows for emotional attachment. Viewers replace historical unknowns with personal feelings and experiences to better relate to the image at hand. 

While I agree with Cole’s argument, I’m not sure if I find it beautiful or frustrating. Photography can make us feel like we’ve experienced things or met people that we haven’t. We accredit so much to pictures, forgetting everything they cannot reveal. The faceless figures in Grand Central and the four men on the rooftop are only physical traces of those that once were. The nameless, documented in history, are often only remembered for their physical compositions and not for the lives they lived. We tend to regard photographs as testaments to the past. We become so emotionally invested in them that we disregard their limitations. Photographs capture fleeting moments, not entire stories. Although photography’s capabilities are upsetting, our inability to fully document the world allows for personal connection, individual interpretation, imagination, and of course nostalgia. The constraint also adds to the inimitable value of the human experience. Even today, with virtual tours and maps recording almost every inch of physical space, humans will never accurately document a moment in history. There will always be a person, a life, a feeling, lost in time.