Prints and negatives of the New York metropolitan area, stored over decades in several shoeboxes in a closet.

About 5 years ago, Andy Blair, also known as wavz13 on Flickr, decided to send off batches of these hidden gems for digitizing. Once in the digital domain, he spent months enhancing the images taken so long ago. "Talk about a labor of love!", he says. A friend mentioned Flickr to Andy and after checking it out, he tentatively decided to start uploading.

But let’s go back to where it all began: Andy grew up in Milford, Connecticut, and his dad commuted

by train down to Manhattan every day, where he worked in the brand new World Trade Center. On days off from high school Andy would often join him, always carrying his Kodak Pocket 40 Instamatic to capture some of the sights of a Lower Manhattan significantly different than the one which exists now. "As a teen, I relished those adventures where I could walk around and take in the sights of what was then a very dirty and gritty – and potentially dangerous – Manhattan. It was so exciting to be there!"

"Although the term ‘urban exploration’ didn’t exist yet, that’s precisely what I was doing. Even as a teen, I avoided the tourist shots and went for the forgotten, obscure and abandoned (which there was plenty of back then!)"

His time on Flickr over the past 4 years has been quite an experience, Andy tells us. "One of the things I found absolutely amazing is how interested people are in these old photographs which until recently spent decades in complete obscurity."

Check out all of wavz13’s photos in his photostream, and also take a look at the sets he created, including vintage New York City, Jersey City, and Milford and Woodmont scenes to get a glimpse of not just urban sights of the New York area, but also everyday life in the USA during the 1970s.