Medicus NYC 1934: Family Life

This 1934 silent home movie, Medicus Collection: New York, 1934, shot in black-and-white 16mm, captures the Medicus family’s life in New York City. Schoolchildren play outside, families picnic, and kids roller skate in Central Park. An NRA parade, including its Motion Picture Division, is filmed from above, reflecting New Deal fervor. Young Philip Medicus shows off his stamp collection, meets Babe Ruth at Yankee Stadium for an autograph, and reads comics in Disney masks as “Micky and Minny.” Scenes span Atlantic City, a Manhattan Automat, Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and Christmastime with a boy and his train set. A pre-war tapestry of 1930s urban joy, it blends nostalgia with cultural icons, though it may romanticize the era’s economic struggles.