Retro Grand Rapids In Color: 1950s, 60s, and 70s

If there's one era of Hollywood I enjoy most, it's New Hollywood, from the mid-60s to the early 80s. Films like Easy Rider and Taxi Driver captured the era's aesthetic perfectly; I've fallen in love with it. The 50s were the first time color film was used en masse, and that early film look is so captivating.

Get our free mobile app

So when I stumbled across a collection of color photos of Grand Rapids from over 50 years ago, I had to share them. It's funny, because traditionally, finding older black-and-white photos of a place is the hard part, and color photography is common as cameras became more readily available. Yet color photos have eluded me.

Grand Rapids Traffic Safety, “View of Grand River from Michigan Street Looking SW,” City of Grand Rapids Archives and Records Center, accessed October 8, 2026, https://grandrapidsmicityarchives.omeka.net/items/show/522.

However, photos like this intrigue me because you can really see the city of GR taking shape. Take this photo of the Michigan St. Bridge, where cars are parked where the Devos Place is now, overlooking the river and the stretch of land before it became the Presidential Museum and Ah-Nab-A-Wen Park.

READ MORE: Grand Rapids’ Growth Spurt: A Citywide Transformation in Photos

Below are more photos from the City of Grand Rapids Archives and Records Center, ranging from the 1950s to the 1970s, of spots around Grand Rapids in color, showing the city as it was beginning to become the familiar city we know today.