Sep 30, 2011 1 min read arthur tress

Photos: Sheepshead Bay Circa 1973

"A Small Park on Sheepshead Bay 05/1973." Photo by Arthur Tress. Source: The U.S. National Archives

I accidentally stumbled upon a treasure trove of photographs by Abraham Lincoln High School graduate Arthur Tress in the flickr account of The U.S. National Archives, in a collection entitled “DOCUMERICA Project by the Environmental Protection Agency.”

For the Documerica Project (1971-1977), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) hired freelance photographers to capture images relating to environmental problems, EPA activities, and everyday life in the 1970s.

The U.S. National Archives digitized more than 15,000 photographs from the series Documerica (Local ID 412-DA) and included them in our online catalog. Our Web site has quick catalog search links for featured DOCUMERICA topics, locations, and photographers.

If you have some free time, I highly recommend browsing through these wonderful images to get a taste of what life was like in Sheepshead Bay, Jamaica Bay, and Staten Island back in 1973.