It’s easy to be nostalgic for a past time – especially when you didn’t live through it. It might seem as though life in the mid-1930s was much simpler. In some ways, it likely was. But in other ways, it was a hard time to be alive. The Great Depression took its toll on everyone, and we probably can’t even imagine everyday life without the technology we have right at our fingertips. Take a look at these incredible photos of New York taken in 1936 and 1937.

This salesman is giving his pitch for hair tonic on Seventh Avenue and 38th.
Russell Lee/photogrammar
This little farm near Ithaca had a portable windmill.
Paul Carter/Photogrammar
Here's the back alley of a tenement building at 133 Avenue D in New York City.
Dorthea Lange/photogrammar
This teenager is reading a newspaper in New York City in 1936 - today, he'd be on his cell phone.
Russell Lee/photogrammar
Lorenzo Clapper and his wife with their seven children. In 1937, they lived on a 67-acre farm in Otsego County.
Arthur Rothstein/photogrammar
Workers in the garment district fill the streets at lunchtime. This photo was taken at Seventh Avenue and West 28th.
Dorthea Lange/photogrammar
Men stand outside the post office on the lower east side in 1936.
Dorthea Lange/photogrammar
Cooking dinner on that stove must have been interesting.
Arthur Rothstein/photogrammar
Children playing in the gutter in the Bronx. Some things never change - kids always want to splash in the water.
Russell Lee/photogrammar
It must have been hard work to live on a farm in Brooktondale.
Carl Mydens/photogrammar
The community grocery store/soda fountain is everyone gathered to hear the latest gossip and grab something to make for dinner.
Arthur Rothstein/photogrammar
Imagine putting an apron over your dress to do your ironing!
Arthur Rothstein/photogrammar
This woman stops her work for a minute to get her photo taken on the porch of her farmhouse in Tompkins County.
Arthur Rothstein/photogrammar
Women on farms spent a lot of time canning, bottling and preserving the crops so that they'd last throughout the winter.
Arthur Rothstein/photogrammar

Do you ever feel like the past was a better time to be alive?

For more Depression-era photos taken in New York, click here.

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