The skyscraper has lost much of its allure, so much so that’s it’s easy to forget how odd super-tall buildings are, and how remarkable the landscape of midtown Manhattan really is.

An exhibit of vintage aerial photographs of New York City at the Keith de Lellis Gallery recaptures that glamor.  Some of the older shots feel blurry and cramped, as if the conventions of photography couldn’t yet keep up with the technology of construction.  All the shots have a gee-whiz quality.  There’s an eagle-eye view looking from midtown straight down to Central Park.  The way the dense, mountain-like fabric of high-rise buildings halts at the north edge of the park is truly stunning.

(Berenice Abbott, Nightview, New York, circa 1932.  Photogravure.)