A young couple playing records in Washington Square Park, ca. 1946.
The album on the boy's lap is typical of the cases that housed the shellac records of the time, which rotated at 78 rpm. They could hold only a few minutes of music per side, and a song was sometimes split between the two sides of the disc. Originally they were issued singly, but record companies noticed that consumers were storing them in photo album-like cases, and began to follow suit.
Photo: Weegee via the Int'l Center of Photography/Getty Images/Old New York City Facebook