While looking through his aunt’s attic in 2009, Soren Larson found a treasure trove: His grandfather, an amateur photographer named Frank Oscar Larson whom Soren describes as the “family shutterbug,” had taken a remarkable collection of New York street scene photos in the 1950s.

The pictures had been tucked away in the attic since 1964, when Frank Larson died. Soren developed some of the negatives, and brought them to the Queens Museum of Art. The photos depict street scenes that, according to the Queens Museum, “are at once universal and personal.”

Three young ladies prepare to have their pictures taken in Manhattan photo booths in April 1954.

 

A rainy day across from St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

 

A rainy evening in New York’s Times Square under the neon lights of the “Black Widow” marquee.

 

A group of businessmen huddle together at the window of the Associated Press office at Rockefeller Center to read the latest news, 1955.

 

The Chrysler Building is reflected in a sidewalk puddle on 42nd St. in April 1954.

 

Two men chat in a coffee shop window near Times Square in April 1954.

 

A Ballantine beer truck stops to make a delivery in front of the NBC Television Theatre.

 

A street performer promotes the film “Johnny Guitar” on the sidewalks of Times Square in Spring, 1954.

 

A woman suns herself outside the entrance to the New York Public Library in 1955.

 

A group poses for a picture at Pier 86, on 46th Street.

 

Professional skaters make a gutsy move in this shot, taken at the Rockefeller Center rink.

 

Two parade officials watch New York’s Saint Patrick’s Day parade pass by on Fifth Avenue as one of them sneaks a cigarette break.

 

The view from the top of a Rockefeller Center escalator looks out onto Fifth Avenue.

 

A candid moment of school girls in 1953.

 

Cops, delivery men, construction workers, cooks, cobblers and kids, just going about their business.

 

A man works on New York City souvenirs with his sewing machine in November 1954.

 

A woman peers out from a ticket booth of a movie theater in New York’s Times Square in 1954.

 

Pigeons gather in Times Square on a rainy day in 1954.