Old New York: Grand Central's Colorama Told Us to Live Large

By Mitch Broder

Please set your smartphone to "IMAX," because these photos are 60 feet wide.

Or else set it to "Last Century," because that's where you'll find Coloramas.

You'll find them in Grand Central Terminal, over the East Balcony — actually, blocking the East Balcony — from 1950 to 1990. They will show you that life is happy and thrilling, not to mention wet, and that, wet or dry, it's virtually always photogenic.

And if you didn't spring for those phone settings, you can revisit the Coloramas at Grand Central now, in an exhibition called — well, "Colorama."

"Discotheque," by Neil Montanus, was displayed February 13 through March 3, 1967. At the top, "Waterskiers, Cypress Gardens, Florida," by Hank Mayer, was displayed August 5 through 26, 1968. All the Colorama photos here are Copyright Eastman Kodak Co. and Courtesy George Eastman House.

It just opened at the New York Transit Museum Gallery Annex (which last year remembered the old Pennsylvania Station). But its photos are actually not their original 18-by-60. The biggest they get is about 2-by-6. At close range, though, that gives you a sense of the biggest thing that people in the terminal got to see, besides their trains.

"Cowboys in Grand Tetons, Wyoming," by Herbert Archer and J. Hood, was displayed October 5 through 26, 1964. 

The original Coloramas were backlit color slides. They were billed as the world's largest photographs. At the least, they were the world's best ad for the company that ruled photography when photography meant things like color slides.

"Saturday Night Family Bath," by Lee Howick, was displayed February 17 through March 9, 1964.

Eastman Kodak Co. sold practically all the film in America in the days before cell phones with IMAX, time machines, and, incredibly, cameras. It installed the Colorama to show millions of travelers that with its cameras, film, and flash bulbs, everything — and anything — could be beautiful.

"Family by Fireplace," by Norm Kerr, was displayed March 15 through May 5, 1965.

In its forty years, the Colorama display held 565 photographs, one every few weeks, and the exhibition sums them up: "They proffered an almost unchanging vision of idealized and perfect landscapes, villages and families, American power and patriotism, and the decorative sentimentality of babies, puppies and kittens."

"Family in Convertible," by Jim Pond, was displayed June 3 through 24, 1968.

In the early years, every picture showed someone taking a picture (or planning to), though, apparently, exemptions were given to waterskiers. In any case, the mission was colorfully voiced by Adolph Stuber, a Kodak ad man who helped to conceive the display: "Everyone who sees the Colorama should be able to visualize them self as being able to make the same wonderful photo."

The exhibition has thirty-six of the wonderful photos, almost all from the sixties, when you could still show a family of five in the bathroom. While most are scenes of America, they include shots of the Taj Mahal, the Matterhorn, Machu Picchu, and Earth itself, as seen from the moon.

There's also a photo of the Colorama display in its Grand Central home (before the East Balcony staircase was built in the nineties renovation).

In its place now is a store, with today's version of a Colorama: a big backlit white apple with a bite taken out of it.

"See You at the Fair," by Donald Marvin, was displayed April 13 though May 4, 1964.

Find your rainbow at "Colorama," through October, at Grand Central Terminal, in New York City.