A14 SATURDAY, JULY 4, 2020
NThumbing through old photographs is a reliable way of
evoking nostalgia. And these black-and-white Independ-
ence Day photographs, pulled from The New York Times’s
archive, offer a potent dose.
We see holiday crowds, marches, amusement parks,
parades. We see friends and families at the beach and in
their backyards. We see communal joy. We see the Twin
Towers, whose lofty height competes with that of the
sky-high fireworks. We see a pre-9/11 world where low-
level flybys near Manhattan don’t set off citywide anxiety.
But today, in the grip of a pandemic, there’s another
dimension to the nostalgia that’s evoked while viewing
these photographs.
It’s evident in the casual human contact,
the close quarters, the lack of social distance.
You’ll find it in the appearances of hands
held against bare faces, the unconscious prox-
imity of strangers, the joy of visible smiles.
You’ll find it in the apparent freedom of move-
ment. You’ll find it in the relaxed posture of
people who aren’t accustomed to — or inter-
ested in — keeping their distance.
Nostalgia, of course, is a corruptible phe-
nomenon. It is, in the words of one historian,
“history without guilt.”
And nostalgia sells. It sells automobiles
and hamburgers and video games. It can buy
and sell elections.
But this newfound element of our national
nostalgia — our longing for the pre-pandemic
past — seems different somehow. It’s born
from a collective sense of insularity. It’s born
from a death toll that has now surpassed
127,000. It’s born from our shared sense of
susceptibility.
Patriotism and nostalgia are inextricably
linked. Perhaps that’s what makes these photographs so
compelling: the juxtaposition of archival expressions of
American pride with our contemporary reality — when,
from a global perspective, the concept of American excep-
tionalism is being challenged on multiple fronts.
In the face of great loss, our celebrations persist. Some
Americans have even begun to travel again.
But in a year when Easter, Eid and Memorial Day
have largely been celebrated without communal gather-
ings, Independence Day will be another holiday that many
of us spend away from our families and friends — another
shared tradition deferred to the future, and relegated, for
now, to the past.1988 Painting
faces during
the African
Street Festival
in Bedford-
Stuyvesant,
Brooklyn.CHESTER HIGGINS/THE NEW YORK TIMESGHOSTS OF INDEPENDENCE DAYS PAST
1986 The
Statue of
Liberty cele-
brating its
100th anni-
versary and
the end of a
two-year
restoration.SARA KRULWICH/THE NEW YORK TIMES1975 Flocking
to Astroland
Park in Co-
ney Island for
rides and
games.CHESTER HIGGINS/THE NEW YORK TIMES1971 A jam-
packed strip
of sand in
Brighton
Beach,
Brooklyn.BARTON SILVERMAN/THE NEW YORK TIMES1994 A sack
race at Muscoot
Farm, near
Somers, N.Y.,
about 50 miles
north of Man-
hattan.SUZANNE DeCHILLO/THE NEW YORK TIMES1973 Members
of a women’s
club marching
in a parade on
Main Street in
Ocean Grove,
N.J.CARL GOSSETT/THE NEW YORK TIMESBy STEPHEN HILTNER and TARIRO MZEZEWAFROM THE ARCHIVES