15 vintage photos show what New York City looked like before the US regulated pollution

Business Insider

16-05-2025

If you've ever spent time in New York City, you'll be familiar with the black trash bags that form mountains on its sidewalks.
The city's government last year advocated for a "trash revolution" that aimed to switch those trash bags with wheeled trash cans. And while Mayor Eric Adams unveiling the trash cans as "revolutionary" might've been mocked widely online, the Big Apple has had it worse.
Before the days of regulated dumping, New York City's landscape was littered with waste stretching from the city's shores to the alleyways of each borough.
The Environmental Protection Agency, which started regulating emissions, waste, and water pollutants after it was established in 1970, once described Brooklyn's Gowanus Canal as "one of the nation's most extensively contaminated water bodies." Since then, the canal has undergone a cleaning operation involving the dredging of contaminated sediments on the canal's floor.
Air pollution, coming largely from transportation and construction, has also long posed a threat to residents.
In 1971, the EPA dispatched 100 photographers to capture America's environmental issues, showing what the US looked like from 1971 to 1977 in a photo project called Documerica. Of the 81,000 images the photographers took, more than 20,000 photos were archived, and at least 15,000 have been digitized by the National Archives.
Many of the photos were taken before the US regulated things like water and air pollution.
Take a look at a few New York City Documerica photos that were taken between 1973 and 1974.
By the start of the 1970s, New York City was one of the most polluted cities in the US.
By the end of the 1960s, New York City had already been dealing with the effects of its unregulated pollution.
The city shorelines were seen as "municipal chamber pots," landfills and illegal dumping lined the city's surroundings, and the air quality had gotten so bad that it was affecting people's lungs, The New York Times reported.
Oil spills were a common occurrence in the pre-EPA days.
In the first six months of 1973, more than 300 oil spills occurred in the New York City area, The New York Times reported.
According to a 1973 Coast Guard survey cited by the newspaper, more than 800 oil spills occurred in the mid-Atlantic region during the same time period.
The city's iconic landscape was often obscured by clouds of smog.
The high air pollution levels meant residents often had their view of the cityscape obscured.
The city updated its air quality laws after a smog event in 1966.
A historic smog event in 1966, when a mass of warm air trapped pollutants from vehicles, factories, and chimneys, prompted the city to update its local air quality laws in the late 1960s, the Times reported.
The Clean Air Act of 1970 set in place regulations for industrial pollution.
The Clean Air Act, passed in 1970, allowed the EPA to set regulations for industrial pollution and authorized the agency to create National Ambient Air Quality Standards to promote air quality regulation throughout the country.
Illegal dumping was common before regulations.
Jamaica Bay was heavily affected by solid waste.
Over the years, the EPA has spearheaded mass trash removals that focus on toxic chemicals. According to the agency, some New York City residents worried about pollution and ecological damage from the Jamaica Bay landfill in the early 1970s.
In 2011, the city of New York and the US Interior Department reached an agreement for a collaborative effort to improve the bay's environmental conditions.
Efforts to continue improving the shore have continued into the 2020s.
Outside the city, waste management wasn't controlled.
Toxic waste was often found in landfills surrounding the city.
A landfill in Staten Island, called Fresh Kills, was the largest in the world. In 2023, the first phase of its restoration into a park was completed and North Park opened.
In 2013, The New York Daily News reported that a New York City Sanitation Department study found high concentrations of two toxins banned by the EPA on the Gravesend Bay landfill, where the children in the picture played.
Marshes and wetlands near the city were often plagued by trash.
By 1992, regulations to prevent waste from being dumped on the shores around the city and efforts to clean them up had begun, with The New York Times reporting the end of the era of "using the ocean as a municipal chamber pot."
Until 1992, the city discarded sewage into the ocean.
The 1992 EPA mandate meant that processing plants for raw sewage began popping up around the city.
Before regulations, the oil and gas industries weren't regulated on where they disposed of waste.
Ongoing construction in the city also meant increased waste.
Building construction has long contributed to air pollution in NYC, though the EPA now regulates emissions from construction equipment.
Improvements to air quality promoted a healthier quality of life for city residents.
Without EPA regulation, cities could return to high levels of pollution that once defined them.
The Trump administration has announced plans to cut back on EPA funding and staffing, with The New York Times reporting in March that the administration planned to eliminate the agency's research branch.
As the current administration's EPA leadership launches the "Biggest Deregulatory Action in US History," as called by the agency, regulations for how industries emit waste into the air, water, and soil will begin to change.
Some reports suggest that if the Trump administration dismantles more of the EPA, Americans could return to the environmental and health conditions that predated the agency's regulations.