Jewish NYC: Images

This section includes general information on where to find images of Jewish New York. We suggest starting your research in the Library's Digital Collections, along with the books and websites below. We also suggest consulting the "Images Resources at NYPL" listed below, including divisions that specialize in pictures, photographs, and prints. The Library's Digital Collections include more than 860,000 digitized images (and growing). We suggest you search by keywords, for example: "Jews" "Jewish" "New York" "synagogues"  "Hebrew" "Ladino" "Yiddish" "Lower East Side".

Digital Collections highlights include:

Morris Huberland - 9,000 images+ of New York City and its inhabitants from the mid-20th century, including synagogues and other themes of Jewish life and culture.

Lewis Wickes Hines - Hundreds of images of life and labor in New York, especially among immigrants of the late 19th and early 20th century.

Yiddish Theater Collection  - Hundreds of posters, placards, and playbills, mostly from late 19th/early 20th century New York City.

Digital Collections by NYPL Division:

• Billy Rose Theatre Division
• Dorot Jewish Division 
• Milstein Division of U.S. History, Local History, and Genealogy
• Wallach Division: Photography Collection
• Wallach Division: Picture Collection

Use the catalog to find books with pictures

Use the keywords "pictorial works" in the Library's catalog to find books that are comprised mostly of illustrations. 

The term "ill" in the book's description line also indicates that a book has some type of illustrations inside. 

If you're looking for a specific image inside a printed book, you will probably have to search the Library's catalog for a book and look through it. Images inside books are generally are not cataloged individually.

Suggested Subject Headings:

• Synagogues -- New York (State) -- New York -- Pictorial works
• Jews -- New York (State) -- New York -- Pictorial works
• Jews -- Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.) -- Pictorial works

Research Guides

• Finding Pictures in the Picture Collection
• Guide to the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs

Blog posts:

• Photographing the Rise and Fall of the Lower East Side's Synagogues
• The Yiddish Broadway and Beyond
• Jewish New York Through the Lens of Morris Huberland

Copyright

Remember that you are responsible for following copyright laws in your use of images and other library materials. When searching the Digital Collections, check the box "Show only public domain" to limit your search results to items in the public domain.