The main novelty of this short, "Skyscrapers of New York City, from the North River", lies not in the footage (which is an interesting yet not extraordinarily so shot), nor the fact that it was the only film J. B. Smith directed. The largest reason this footage retains interest today for historians is chiefly through how it was shot: rather, from a boat on the North River. Moving shots were indeed quite novel during the 1890s and early 1900s, mostly because of how static cameras were at that point, and because of how they increased the realism of an audience being on the location the cameraman was. Actually, the way panoramic shots were captured was merely by attaching cameras to a moving conveyance to make camera motion. Not an inventive concept by today's standards but very exhilarating for audiences during the period.
This documentary is a later film of that genre, as such films had originated in 1896 with Alexandre Promio's "Panorama du Grande Canal pris d'un bateau". At that time, camera panning of any sort had not been invented yet and all cameras were fixed in one position--plus, film was still new to the public and panoramic shots were very attention-getting to audiences. The "Phantom Ride" movies later followed this, where the concept of filming scenery from a train was innovated, an even more attractive idea to audiences. Movies like Billy Blitzer's "Panorama from the Tower of Brooklyn Bridge" later followed, attempting different methods of panning shots.
That was all very 1890s-ish, however. By 1903 films were getting longer and more sophisticated, and simple panning documentaries were becoming a little obsolete, with trick films and fairy-tale extravaganzas rising above. Edison clearly realized this, as part of this very movie was edited into the thirteen-minute "European Rest Cure" made a year later. In general, things were just getting fancier. Still, these short documentaries provide interesting glimpses of the past and of old buildings long gone and history-wise are above the more developed movies during that time.