Museum of the City of New York: Byron Company Collection On Line, http://museumofnyc.doetech.net/voyager.cfm. Created and maintained by Museum of the City of New York. Reviewed May-July 2009

Abstract

This collection of photographs is an archival site of digital images and descriptive information about individual works in the Byron Collection; it “consists of over 22,000 photographs of New York City and its environs taken by the Byron Company between 1890 and 1942.” The home page offers visitors two choices in addition to a general search: one can click on “Selected Topics” and access a sampling of images from the collection or one can click on “Search” and start investigating the database using pull-down menus. In the first, samples are offered in the following categories: bicycle(s), blizzard of 1899, Coney Island, Delmonico's, ice skating, Lower East Side, Lower Manhattan, Lyceum Theater, Roosevelt Hospital, ship(s). The categories appear somewhat random. Some are neighborhoods, some institutions, and some events. If one clicks on a category the screen displays ten of twenty to thirty items. On the left is the image and on...