The elephant parade is leaving town, quite possibly for good. On Sunday, the elephants of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus will perform for the last time in New York City as the circus closes its run at Barclays Center. Ringling Bros., after decades of pressure from animal-rights activists and changing laws and tastes, is retiring its elephants this spring.

But for more than 200 years, for better or worse, elephants have been a staple wonderment of public life in New York City, doing tricks under the big top, promenading down boulevards, marching into the city by bridge or tunnel (that’s the Queensboro Bridge in 1959 above).

To browse through the “elephants” folder in our photo archive is to take a brief tour of a more innocent – wildlife advocates might say more ignorant – time.