A great compilation of videos is making its way around the web. Some of this footage shows NYC much as it looked when Alice Guy first arrived in 1907, though the footage is from 1911.
This is how Alice described NYC in her memoirs:
"A few moments later we came out on the Bowery, a shady neighborhood of New York frequented by all the undesirables. Amidst the animation of a great port, the workers invaded the old wagons transformed into snack-bars in the the search for a hot dog and coffee. The elevated railroad still existed and made a noise like thunder. The tramways, of which some were still horse-drawn, crossed each other in every direction....
It was probably five o'clock when we arrived on Broadway. I thought there was a revolution. Every doorway vomited hundreds of human beings using their elbows and fists, shouting, swearing, calling each other. Jostled, dazed, I hung on the arm of my husband who seemed to find it all amusing...
Tramways passed, with clusters of people hanging to their platforms. Interminable lines marked time impatiently waiting on the wharves for the ferryboats crossing the Hudson. Some were engulfed in the mouth of the subway....An hour later, the town was calm again."