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The street, from the start · How this atlas is made

Site · photo credits

Photo credits

The real photographs on this site come from Wikimedia Commons and are used under the license each photographer chose; they are listed below with author, license and source.

Pictures on this site fall into three groups, and each is marked so you can tell them apart.

Real photographs

Photos of real streets, buildings and equipment come from Wikimedia Commons, the free media library run by volunteers. Each one is used under its own license, most often a Creative Commons license that allows reuse with credit, or a public domain dedication. The table below names the photographer or uploader, the license and the file’s page on Commons, as each license asks. A photo is chosen because it shows a typical building or fixture of its kind; it is not a picture of your building, and no photographer endorses this site.

We crop and resize photos to fit the page. Where a photo showed a business logo or a person’s face, we blurred it. Apart from that, the pictures are as the photographers made them.

AI-generated pictures

A smaller number of pictures were made with an AI image model. Each one says so in its caption on the page it belongs to. They are not photographs of real places, people or equipment, and they should not be read as showing how any particular building is built.

Drawings

The home page street scene and the cut-away views of each building type were drawn for this site as schematics. No one measured a real building to make them, and they are not surveys or official maps. They exist to show where a boiler, a riser or a roof tank usually sits. How this atlas is made explains this and the sources behind the text.

Every picture on this site
PictureSourceByLicenceChanges
Apartment buildings of different heights and ages beside row houses on Clifton Place, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn (Nov 2019)Wikimedia Commons file pageAndre CarrotflowerCC BY-SA 4.0cropped to 4:3
Fire escape on the Hart Street side of a brick apartment building at Throop Avenue, Bedford-Stuyvesant, BrooklynWikimedia Commons file pageAndre CarrotflowerCC BY-SA 4.0cropped to 4:3
Brownstone row houses at 138-162 St. John's Place, Park Slope, Brooklyn, built 1891-92Wikimedia Commons file pageBeyond My KenCC BY-SA 4.0cropped to 4:3
370 Riverside Drive, a Georgian Revival apartment building at West 109th Street, Upper West Side, ManhattanWikimedia Commons file pageAjay SureshCC BY 4.0cropped to 4:3
Attached houses on 70th Street, Bay Ridge, BrooklynWikimedia Commons file pageGK tramrunner RUCC BY-SA 4.0blurred: 2 area(s)
Gotham Point, a glass-and-brick residential tower in Long Island City, QueensWikimedia Commons file pageKidfly182CC BY-SA 4.0cropped to 4:3
Facade of a walk-up apartment building with fire escapes on 143rd Street, the Bronx (Feb 2008)Wikimedia Commons file pagePhillip Capper from Wellington, New ZealandCC BY 2.0cropped to 4:3
A restored apartment room in the Tenement Museum, 97 Orchard Street, Lower East Side, ManhattanWikimedia Commons file pageCarol M. HighsmithPublic domaincropped to 4:3
Brownstone row houses with high stoops in Harlem, ManhattanWikimedia Commons file pagePaul LowryCC BY 4.0cropped to 4:3
The carved stone stoop of a brownstone row house in Park Slope, BrooklynWikimedia Commons file pageSteveStrummerCC0cropped to 4:3
The Normandy, 140 Riverside Drive at 86th Street, Upper West Side, Manhattan, a New York City landmarkWikimedia Commons file pageJay DobkinCC BY-SA 4.0cropped to 4:3
Lobby of The Hamilton, 420 Riverside Drive, Morningside Heights, ManhattanWikimedia Commons file pageDeans CharbalCC BY-SA 4.0cropped to 4:3
Semi-attached houses on a corner in Bay Ridge, BrooklynWikimedia Commons file pageGK tramrunner RUCC BY-SA 4.0cropped to 4:3
AI-generated picture of a two-family house basement with a tank water heater and a gas boilerAI-generated pictureAI image modelMade for this sitecropped to 4:3
The Skyline Tower in Long Island City, QueensWikimedia Commons file pageKidfly182CC0cropped to 4:3
A packaged terminal air conditioner (PTAC) installed under a window in a residential apartmentWikimedia Commons file pageCentral AvenueCC BY 4.0cropped to 4:3
Gilded Age apartment buildings at 213-217 East 10th Street, East Village, ManhattanWikimedia Commons file pageAndre CarrotflowerCC BY-SA 4.0cropped to 4:3
The Grand Concourse looking north from East 170th Street, between Mount Hope and Tremont, the Bronx (June 2022)Wikimedia Commons file pageAndre CarrotflowerCC BY-SA 4.0blurred: 1 area(s)
Attached houses on a street in Kensington, BrooklynWikimedia Commons file pageGK tramrunner RUCC BY-SA 4.0blurred: 1 area(s)
A typical residential street of brick apartment buildings in Jackson Heights, Queens (April 2005)Wikimedia Commons file pageThe original uploader was Jleon at English Wikipedia.CC BY 2.5blurred: 1 area(s)
Kreischerville Workers' Houses, two-family houses on Kreischer Street, Charleston, Staten Island, built around 1890Wikimedia Commons file pagePeter GreenbergCC BY-SA 3.0cropped to 4:3
An old cast-iron radiator with an embossed pattern, painted silverWikimedia Commons file pagevictorgrigasCC BY-SA 3.0cropped to 4:3
Rows of gas meters and pipes on the outside wall of an apartment buildingWikimedia Commons file pageivvaCC BY-SA 2.0cropped to 4:3
Rooftop water tanks among masonry buildings, New York CityWikimedia Commons file pageZ3lvsCC0cropped to 4:3
Pipes in the basement of a building under demolitionWikimedia Commons file pageChad Davis from Minneapolis, United StatesCC BY-SA 2.0cropped to 4:3
Victorian houses in Park Slope, Brooklyn, after a snowfallWikimedia Commons file pageGK tramrunner229CC BY-SA 3.0cropped to 4:3
A brownstone stoop with snow piled on the steps, BrooklynWikimedia Commons file pageFixomaticCC BY-SA 4.0cropped to 4:3
AI-generated picture of hot water running from a bathroom tap in an old apartmentAI-generated pictureAI image modelMade for this sitecropped to 4:3
Madison Square after the blizzard of 26-27 December 2010, seen from 22nd Street and Broadway, ManhattanWikimedia Commons file pageBeyond My KenCC BY-SA 4.0blurred: 1 area(s)
An ornate cast-iron radiator in a lecture theatre (Ashworth Labs)Wikimedia Commons file pageOpen EdCC BY 2.0cropped to 4:3
AI-generated picture of the single valve on a one-pipe steam radiatorAI-generated pictureAI image modelMade for this sitecropped to 4:3
AI-generated picture of a two-pipe steam radiator in a prewar apartmentAI-generated pictureAI image modelMade for this sitecropped to 4:3
AI-generated picture of a steam riser pipe and radiator in an old apartmentAI-generated pictureAI image modelMade for this sitecropped to 4:3
AI-generated picture of an air vent on top of a steam radiatorAI-generated pictureAI image modelMade for this sitecropped to 4:3
AI-generated picture of a chilly prewar apartment with an old radiatorAI-generated pictureAI image modelMade for this sitecropped to 4:3
Steam boiler in the cellar under the kitchen of St. Anne Rectory, Waterbury, Connecticut (HABS survey photo, black and white)Wikimedia Commons file pageunknown (see source page)Public domainblurred: 3 area(s)
AI-generated picture of the boiler room of a large prewar apartment buildingAI-generated pictureAI image modelMade for this sitecropped to 4:3
Gas meter on a brick wall, Syracuse, New York (2013)Wikimedia Commons file pageMichael ScialdoneCC BY 2.0blurred: 2 area(s)
A gas meter exposed behind a missing cabinet doorWikimedia Commons file pageAethonaticCC0cropped to 4:3
AI-generated picture of a gas range in a small apartment kitchenAI-generated pictureAI image modelMade for this sitecropped to 4:3
AI-generated picture of a gas shutoff valve on a basement pipeAI-generated pictureAI image modelMade for this sitecropped to 4:3
AI-generated picture of a carbon monoxide alarm in an apartment hallwayAI-generated pictureAI image modelMade for this sitecropped to 4:3
AI-generated picture of a water meter in a row house basementAI-generated pictureAI image modelMade for this sitecropped to 4:3
Kensico Dam in Valhalla, New York, which holds back the Kensico Reservoir in New York City's water supply (New Year's Day 2024)Wikimedia Commons file pageGaoKyleCC0cropped to 4:3
AI-generated picture of an old lead service pipe entering a basementAI-generated pictureAI image modelMade for this sitecropped to 4:3
AI-generated picture of filling a water sample bottle at a kitchen tapAI-generated pictureAI image modelMade for this sitecropped to 4:3
Rooftop water tanks and city towers, New York CityWikimedia Commons file pageZ3lvsCC0cropped to 4:3
Water towers above 110 West 14th Street at Sixth Avenue, Chelsea / Greenwich Village, Manhattan (Jan 2022)Wikimedia Commons file pageTdorante10CC BY-SA 4.0cropped to 4:3
New Croton Dam spillway near Croton-on-Hudson, New York, part of New York City's Croton water supplyWikimedia Commons file pageAcroterionCC BY-SA 4.0cropped to 4:3
Ashokan Reservoir with the Catskills' Burroughs Range beyond, part of New York City's Catskill water supplyWikimedia Commons file pageDaniel CaseCC BY-SA 3.0cropped to 4:3
A Manhattan Department of Public Works manhole cover in a New York City streetWikimedia Commons file pagePaul LowryCC BY 4.0cropped to 4:3
AI-generated picture of frosted water pipes along the outside wall of an unheated cellarAI-generated pictureAI image modelMade for this sitecropped to 4:3
Rowhouses in the Forest-Norman Historic District, Ridgewood, QueensWikimedia Commons file pageRublovCC BY-SA 4.0cropped to 4:3
Brick apartment building at the northwest corner of Hart Street and Throop Avenue, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn (Nov 2019)Wikimedia Commons file pageAndre CarrotflowerCC BY-SA 4.0cropped to 4:3
A sidewalk shed being built on 47th Street, ManhattanWikimedia Commons file pageJim.hendersonCC BY-SA 4.0blurred: 6 area(s)
Row houses along Lenox Avenue at 123rd Street, Harlem, ManhattanWikimedia Commons file pageJim.hendersonCC0cropped to 4:3
Brownstones on Union Street, Park Slope, Brooklyn, at sunsetWikimedia Commons file pageCityLimitsJunctionCC0cropped to 4:3