Auteur: pdbfoto

In ’77, New York was emerging from the fiscal crisis of 1975, when the city came dangerously close to bankruptcy. Crime rates were high, many neighborhoods were losing population, and large tracts of waterfront and industrial land sat vacant or underused.

The recently completed World Trade Center towers dominate the skyline. At the time, they were among the tallest buildings in the world, standing 1,368 and 1,362 feet tall. Yet despite their immense scale, the surrounding area still contained vast stretches of undeveloped land, parking lots, warehouses, and decaying piers.

The photograph also highlights a forgotten aspect of Manhattan’s history: before luxury towers, waterfront parks, and billion-dollar real estate developments transformed the West Side, parts of Lower Manhattan retained an almost industrial frontier atmosphere. Land that would be worth millions of dollars today could sit nearly empty.

Added Fact: In the late 1970s, New York City’s population had fallen below 7.1 million after peaking at nearly 7.9 million in 1950. Many experts believed the city’s best days were behind it. Instead, New York would experience one of the most dramatic urban revivals in modern history, growing to more than 8.8 million residents and becoming one of the world’s most valuable real estate markets.

The Erbil Citadel is one of the most remarkable urban sites in the world. Rising about 100 feet (30 meters) above the surrounding city on a large artificial mound, the citadel occupies a strategic position that has attracted settlers for millennia.

Located in Erbil, the site has yielded evidence of occupation dating back at least to the 5th millennium BC, and possibly earlier. Over its long history, it has been ruled by or associated with the Sumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks under Alexander the Great, Parthians, Romans, Arabs, Mongols, Ottomans, and modern Iraq.

The city’s ancient name, Arbela, appears in cuneiform records more than 4,000 years old. It was an important religious center of the Assyrian Empire, particularly for the worship of the goddess Ishtar. In 331 BC, the nearby Battle of Gaugamela effectively ended the Achaemenid Persian Empire and opened the way for Alexander’s conquest of the Near East.

In 2014, the citadel was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, recognizing its extraordinary historical significance.

Added Fact: Unlike many famous ancient cities that were abandoned and later rediscovered, Erbil remained inhabited through nearly every major era of Middle Eastern history. This continuity makes it one of the strongest contenders for the title of the world’s oldest continuously inhabited urban settlement, alongside places such as Jericho and Damascus.