Analog City

Analog City: NYC B.C. (Before Computers) uncovers the array of tools, technologies, and lost professions that supported New York City as it exploded into a global metropolis in the pre-digital era. Focusing on the period between the 1870s and the 1970s, Analog City examines the technologies that enabled the city to reach its position as the “capital of the world” in an age before the speed and capacity of today’s digital technologies. Set against a contemporary backdrop of 24-hour news cycles and high-speed trading—in which questions about privacy, truth, and the impact of social media are increasingly pressing—the exhibition uncovers this bygone era of paper files and pneumatic tubes, of note cards and telephone directories, and examines how New York thrived as a center of finance, news, research, and real estate in an era before personal computers and the internet.