NY Through the Lens - New York City Photography

Stone Street Historic District. South William Street. Financial District - New York City.

Something I absolutely love about New York City is that tucked away between the towering monuments of modernity that populate the cityscape are streets that look as if they have been transported from another era and geographic location entirely. These streets are suspended in time like flies in amber.

This area is known as the Stone Street historic district in lower Manhattan. Bound by Stone Street, Pearl Street, and South William Streets and Mill Lane, it is a section that is unlike any of its surrounding blocks. This particular section is bound by South William street and 13-15 South William Street can be seen in this particular view. Around the block from this part of the area are other historic buildings and the Stone Street area ‘proper’.

In 1903, the architect C.P.H. Gilbert designed new street facades on the buildings in this section of South William Street (57 Stone Street on the other side). Gilbert’s neo-Dutch Renaissance architecture features structural details like stepped gables and strapwork and was a nod to the early settlement of Manhattan.

This area which dates back to the 1600s when New York City was first colonized by Dutch settlers was sadly destroyed by the Great Fire of 1835. The surrounding section of Stone Street was rebuilt with granite bases of post-and-lintel construction and upper-additions of brick which were specifically erected for importers and merchants.

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Early Sunday morning on Orchard Street. Lower East Side. New York City.

On cold city mornings, birds pepper the bone-white sky with movement.

And through the haze left over by clouds caught in the scuffle between autumn and winter, the wind rushes through the streets like the ghosts of yesterday’s thoughts.

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New York City at night - Financial District street with a smoke stack.

At night after the multitudes have retreated to their homes away from the buildings and streets that hold them close during the day the city relaxes shaking the dust of the long day from its concrete limbs.

The street lights flicker like dream-heavy blinks of an eye while smokestacks exhale world-weary breaths of smoke into the yawning night air.

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Urban decay and graffiti on Canal Street. Chinatown, New York City.

New York City changes and evolves at a rapid pace. In certain areas, changes occur faster than others. Lower Manhattan is one place that has changed the most in the last decade. Development happens fast and the current trends are extremely tall buildings constructed mostly of glass, chain stores and luxury boutiques. In neighborhoods that were once bohemian and home to artists and rebels, these current changes have been hard to swallow for long-time residents who run the risk of being out-priced out of the neighborhoods they have called home for decades.

Despite these changes, there are still parts of lower Manhattan that recall earlier decades. New York City suffered economically in the 1970s and it was during this decade that much of lower Manhattan was transformed into a danger zone full of abandoned lots and buildings and rampant crime. Having grown up in New York City in the 1980s and early 1990s, I have vivid memories of riding graffiti-covered trains from Queens into Manhattan. I was taught to ‘watch my back’ at all times since everyone seemed to know someone who had been mugged. Things were still different in those days prior to the initiatives by mayors Koch and Guiliani to ‘clean up’ the city (and discourse is still rampant regarding how they handled it).

When I came across this section of Canal Street initially, my heart almost leaped out of my chest. Here I was staring at a section of a spot in Chinatown that seemed as if it had been dipped in 1980s New York City and had become frozen in time (thankfully I had my camera). It’s hard to put into words how powerful this scene is for personally. It’s a bit like staring at something that once existed in a distant life.

A city may change rapidly discarding pieces of itself, but it’s the people who carry it’s broken pieces with them in their hearts who imbue the city with its memory.

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I also wanted to share a bit of current news regarding this image. A client contacted me a few weeks back regarding setting up a contract to use this photo as a full wall mural in their upcoming restaurant in the UK. Super excited to see how it turns out. I have seen the mock-ups and I can’t wait to see it when it is finished.

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New York City in the rain. Flatiron District, Midtown.

There is an inherent romance that buzzes through the air in New York City when it rains.

The Flatiron District is one of my favorite areas in Manhattan when it rains. The street (5th Avenue) opens up to reveal distant skyscrapers that disappear into heavy fog as people weave their way through the multitudes of umbrellas.

The clock in this image is the Fifth Avenue Building Clock (a close-up image and its history is in this post) which is a New York City landmark and recalls another era: one where these ornamental clocks played a role in attracting people to gilded era storefronts. This vantage point is with the Flatiron Building directly in back of the viewer looking up 5th Avenue.

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I have had quite a few requests that I add some of my New York City mobile photography to my online store and portfolio since people are looking to buy holiday gifts. This is the first of one of those requests. It was taken with my phone and has been lovingly added (link below!).

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Walking the dog towards Mill Lane. Financial District, New York City.

I have been thinking a lot about different visions of New York City a lot lately which I wrote about recently in this post about everyone’s different version of New York City in their minds. I had an interesting interview for a project I am being considered for a few weeks ago where I found myself talking about what I try to convey about New York City with my photography and writing.

It was interesting to talk about it face to face (over Skype) rather than write about it because in a sort of stream of consciousness way I had to explain to someone who had never been to New York City how I try to show how I experience New York City on a regular basis via my own views of it colored by falling in love with a combination of streetscapes in classic film noir cinema, futuristic sci-fi city environments in literature and film, and years of traversing New York City on foot.

A few nights ago, I watched a documentary about Woody Allen and there was a segment in it that resonated with me deeply which is no surprise since I am a huge fan of the Annie Hall and Manhattan era Woody Allen films. Martin Scorcese, the director of masterpieces such as: Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas and Gangs of New York talks about Woody Allen’s extreme nostalgia for the present that is evident in Allen’s film Manhattan. He states that for Woody Allen it is as if New York City is constantly alive and continually evolving but Allen’s New York City is an entirely different planet from his own. The documentary switches over to Woody Allen who then states: “I wanted to show New York in a very beautiful way, the way I see it. I never had any interest in showing it except through my rose colored glasses; my romanticized view of it.”

There is definitely a romanticized element that is evident in my photography of New York City. When I walk from my apartment on the Lower East Side through Chinatown and Soho or up through the East Village towards midtown, I am bombarded with memories and desire to capture the fragments of life and architecture that, for me, tug at the visions of New York City I have in my own mind. I hope that one day if and when I have the means to travel I will be able to do the same which each place I explore and experience.

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Rain. Pell Street. Chinatown, New York City.

In-between light creates all its own stories. It’s the light after a long night when the city sleepily shakes off the blanket of darkness and stretches in the first few rays of the waking sun and it’s also the light after a long day when the city unwinds basking in the low light of dusk.

In-between light caught in the steady drizzle of rain is even more enchanting. Tears of laughter, heartache, sorrow and joy fall on the city streets silencing their hungry rumble. Buildings darken one by one as the city blurs softly preparing for its nightly refractory period.

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Sunny’s Bar on Conover Street. Red Hook, Brooklyn. New York City.

There are streets and places that feel as if they have been taken out another time. They seem to exist independently of the world around them as fragments of history that have somehow made it into the present.

Sunny’s is a 120 year old saloon that is located in Red Hook, Brooklyn, a neighborhood of New York City that has quite a colorful history. The bar is named after Antonio “Sunny” Balzano who was born in 1934 in the deep red brick apartment right next to the bar. Growing up near the waterfront in Red Hook in the 1940s, he would play alongside ship cargo and after surviving violent street brawls in the 1950s and the crime of the 1980s, he became the owner of the bar that neighbored the apartment where his life unfolded through the years.

The bar was originally run by Sunny’s uncle where it revolved around the shipping industry. Longshoremen were the main clientele back then. When Sunny moved back home in the 1980s to take over the operations at the bar, the neighborhood was a shell of what it used to be. The shipping industry had moved its operations across the harbor to New Jersey and for quite a few years the streets remained quiet and Sunny operated the bar just to keep it open for a few neighborhood regulars.

Red Hook has since changed as it has been embraced by both developers, the arts community and families looking to settle down in a quiet part of Brooklyn. Sunny’s still exists though, a testament to Red Hook’s colorful history.

- History pieced together from “Sunny’s Wonderful Saloon” New York Times By Wendell Jameison, October 2002

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Looking down Staple Street in Tribeca. New York City.

There are streets that I return to over and over again. These streets tug at memories I haven’t made yet while yanking memories I treasure from the deep recesses of my mind. They haunt me in all the best ways. They represent the New York City in my mind.

Everyone seems to have a different version of New York City in their mind. It’s the version that they look for when turning a corner and glancing down a street. My own version of New York City was formed early on. It’s a result of falling in love with a combination of streetscapes in classic film noir cinema, futuristic sci-fi city environments in literature and film, and years of traversing New York City on foot.

This is one of those streets that I could have only dreamed existed until I turned a corner one day and stopped dead in my tracks as I looked down the street towards the skybridge that crosses between buildings. It’s Staple Street in Tribeca. A tiny alley-like street, it contains one of the most fascinating pedestrian bridges (also known as a skyway, traverse, skywalk and a host of other terms) I have ever seen in New York City.

Some history about this street: “In 1894, New York Hospital built the House of Relief, a downtown clinic, on Jay from Hudson to Staple, with an ambulance entrance facing Staple. In that year The New York Herald noted that the hospital was sending its ambulance out as often as seven times a day, sometimes on emergencies involving sunstroke, ”which so often occurs in the lower part of the city,” perhaps because of the large number of men working outdoors on the docks.

In 1907 the hospital built an annex across Staple Street (replacing the saloon/row house at Jay and Staple) as a stable and laundry, connecting it at the third-floor level using a pedestrian bridge. Although Staple Street was then just an industrial alley, the hospital had the architects Robertson & Potter design a handsome little building with a terra cotta plaque bearing the ”NYH” monogram on the Staple Street side. The monogram is still there.” - from “Streetscapes: Staple Street in TriBeCa” New York Times By Christopher Gray, February 2001

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Sunset over a cobblestone street. Tribeca, New York City.

The first whispers of summer are carried on warm breezes urged on by the sun stretching itself out from under the faintest cover of clouds.

As cobblestone streets soak up each and every last bit of golden summer sunlight the buildings glow like fiery embers in the sun’s wake.

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Looking out over the tenements of East Broadway. Two Bridges, Chinatown. New York City.

In my last post I wrote about streets that, for me, fill in the image of New York City that exists in my mind. These are streets that represent so much more than merely a geographical spot. These streets are the embodiment of a core concept that has defined New York City for many decades. The sheer density of people that grace these streets with their presence seem to imbue streets like these with the weight of their aspirations.

New York City has always been a destination for those seeking a generalized concept of a better life. As an economic lighthouse and representation of (the steadily crumbling concept of) the American Dream, New York City has attracted people from all over the world especially during the last century.

I grew up the child of an immigrant to the United States. My mother’s family fled Eastern Europe after World War II. They (including her) were victims of the war, concentration camp and labor camp survivors who carried with them mental scars so deep that it took years for them to gain even a small modicum of a foothold here.

I have always felt disconnected from her experience though. My mother who wanted her children to blend in rather than stick out as she did when she immigrated here, did her best to give me and my brothers a fairly normal American childhood where we grew up in Queens. It wasn’t until a decade ago when I started to ask her about her own immigration story after starting to delve into my own fascination with the history of New York City that I started to understand the gravity of what it means to come to a place like New York City with little more than a massive amount of dreams.

And so, shortly after moving to the Lower East Side from elsewhere in Manhattan I came across this street (the one in this photo) since it sits in a neighborhood that borders the Lower East Side and Chinatown and it felt as if I could finally understand what it must have been like for my mother and for all those who came here to America with eyes full of hope.

It’s not that my mother settled here in this neighborhood specifically. But rather that it’s as if this street has been steeped in a time when the world and New York City was a different place, one that held out vast amounts of heady fortune in its outstretched hands. The world has changed quite a bit since my mother first set foot here. It’s harder (dare I say almost completely difficult) to come here with next to nothing and make a decent life for yourself. The hands are still held out but they are no longer outstretched for everyone.

When I look at this street today, I see many of the original tenements that were standing one hundred years ago when waves of immigrants came to New York City following their own hazy image of what New York City embodied in their minds and those who traverse this street today are not so far removed from my mother who traversed the streets of New York City for many decades.

It’s as if, for the few minutes that I spend gazing at this street below (as I often do), I am connected in a deeper way to all of the dreamers that called and still call New York City their home.

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Over East Broadway on a busy, sunny afternoon. Two Bridges. Lower East Side, New York City.

There are streets that, for me, fill in the image of New York City that exists in my mind.

I have spoken about this before in older posts. Everyone seems to have their own image of New York City that, for them, represents so much more than just the geographical spot that New York City inhabits on any sort of map.

It took me about a year of thinking about my own approach to New York City with photography and via writing to figure out what I was trying to do every time I took a photo of this city I have called home since my birth. But now I know and it has changed my own view of my surroundings.

It’s not easy to attempt to distill something as enormous a concept or location as New York City into visual and tangible emotion but that is what I try to do with every photo I feel proud enough to post, whether it is taken with my phone (like the photo in this post) or with my regular camera.

I will post a few companion photos to this one later this week (that I took with my regular camera) and expand further about what this street means to me currently.

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This is my weekly mobile photography post. I am @newyorklens on Instagram (view my feed here). You can read about my thoughts on mobile photography and Instagram here and you can check out some of my Instagram photos on Flickr here. Additionally, you can view my phone photography for sale here.

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Summer on Perry Street. Greenwich Village, New York City

On summer days like this, the bright summer sun barely cuts through the branches of trees canopies that line the street while brownstones and bicycles revel in the cool shade.

Some people flee the city in the summer, preferring cooler climates free of hot cement. For me, there is nothing that comes close to summer in the city.

It’s true that often the air is held captive by the high heat and the sun scorches the pavement but when a breeze is allowed free rein to fly through the trees, something magical happens.

Streets breathe a sigh of relief and warm tones of muted sunlight cast upon buildings languishing in the shade inspire smiles of contentment.

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Soho street in bright afternoon sunlight. New York City.

In the bright afternoon light of the sun, the city squints its eyes momentarily.

Buildings emerge from their slumbering shadows and streets glisten.

It’s during this momentary squint that every sun gleam and distant figure on each sun-kissed street flicker in and out of view: urban mirages filtered through the eyes of the city.

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I just wanted to share that this past weekend for the first time ever I had a request for and sold a visual print of one of my pieces of writing to accompany a print (this poem) . I have never been so happy!

I get really excited every time I sell a print but to sell a piece of writing is something I consider really special because my words are so intrinsically linked to my photography (and vice versa). Many thanks to the wonderful customer!

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Above a street in the Two Bridges neighborhood. New York City.

There are areas in lower Manhattan where fragments of the city’s history have settled like fine dust, fragile and prone to the whims of time.

Around these hallowed enclaves, newer history reaches higher towards the sky and rises from the ground borne from the dust of the city’s past.

This particular spot is known as Two Bridges and sits along the East River. It borders Chinatown and the Lower East Side and has long been a dwelling spot for many different immigrant communities over the years. It sits alongside the infamous and historic Five Points area where Irish, Jewish and Italian gangs battled to the death in the mid-19th century. It is currently home to a large community of Chinese immigrants and many of the buildings are tenements dating back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

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