30 Amazing Black and White Photographs of 1980s New York Taken by Richard Sandler

New York in the 1980s was an altogether different city from the safe, clean (for the most part), cosmopolitan urban playground it is today.

Photographer Richard Sandler began taking pictures, which now tell a fascinating story of a gritty, graffiti-strewn city that just 20 years later would be in the thrall of gentrification.

“You are recording your time,” Sandler told Daily Mail Online. “You are looking for trends. If you are in the street, you see it. You see everything on the street.”

This amazing pictures captures rush hour at the Main Concourse of Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan in 1989.

A suited man is captured on camera as he walks near Broadway and Wall Street, circa 1987.

Subway subculture: Sandler took this shot, 'Hasid and Hipster,' on a subway in 1990.

A homeless woman stands bear overflowing trash on Fifth Ave in 1980.

A man and woman stand on the street exchanging words on Fifth Avenue in 1984; their respective stances speak volumes.

In 'The Hopefuls' young party-goers wait in line to get into Studio 54 in 1982.

The late 1970s and 80s signaled the beginnings of street art as we know it, with subways like this one in 1986 covered in tags by illicit painters.

Soho nannies and their charges: Now full of designer stores and expensive cupcake bakeries, back in the 1980s was a thriving artistic community.

A woman looks up from a subway car so covered in graffiti it's almost more paint than wall in 1984.

Sandler shot the comings and goings at TWA Terminal at John F Kennedy Airport in 1978.

A very tall man towers over other New Yorkers who stare in awe on Fifth Avenue in 1987.

A couple are perfectly framed by the subway door's splintered window in this shot taken in 1987.

A police officer is caught mid-movement by Sandler in this shot called 'True You Found it' taken in 1982.

Inside the women's room on the Staten Island Ferry in 1978, Sandler captured a woman slumps in front of the mirror.

This noir-ish shot was taken outside Van Cleef on Manhattan's 57th Street.

A woman wearing a rain hat peers distrustfully at the camera lens as she stands in a doorway on Fifth Avenue in 1984.

Two women walk together on 34th Street in 1980, one clad in extremely brief pants and a sweatband.

A man speaks ay an anti-gay demonstration on Sixth Avenue in 1989. New York legalized gay marriage in 2011.

A commuter rides the subway, oblivious to the moment being captured on film in 1983 by Sandler.

Three sleeping children slump against their carer as another woman who was not with the children tries to protect them from Sandler's lens in 1982.

Sandler took this picture of a little boy openly staring at an elderly woman on Fifth Avenue.

A moment is captured at a political convention for Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale in 1980.

'Men and Briefcases' shows rush hour at 57th Street as suited men head to work in 1980.

A woman puffs a cigarette in the days before 'No smoking within 25 feet' signs on Madison Avenue in 1982.

A woman stands in the graffiti-covered carriage of the C train in 1985 as other commuters look on.

A couple surrounded canoodles on a busy subway platform as a train rushes by in 1985.

A woman applies make-up as she sits in the window of the Donnell Library in 1981 while another person stares at the photographer.

Two children stare curiously at a homeless man as they walk with their parents on 32nd Street in 1981.

Women stalk Manhattan's Fifth Avenue clad in expensive fur coats in 1987.

(Photos by by Richard Sandler, via Daily Mail Online)