NY Through the Lens - New York City Photography

New York City winter. Snow in Soho on Mercer Street.

Soho is so beautiful in the snow especially right after snow has freshly fallen and still sits like icing on the fire escapes and street signs.

This part of Soho is part of the Soho Cast Iron District which consists of 500 buildings that feature distinct cast-iron architecture spanning over a 26 block radius. Many of the buildings date back to the 1870s when the area was primarily residential. However, most of the residences during the later part of the 20th century were converted for commercial use which allowed Soho to play an integral role in the commercial development of New York City.

This is a view looking north up Mercer Street in Soho towards midtown. The Chrysler Building can be seen in the distance. The snow-covered sign on the left belongs to Fanelli’s Cafe which has stood in this spot since the 1850s.

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Vesuvio Bakery. Soho. New York City

This is one of my favorite storefronts in Soho. A little over 90 years old, Vesuvio Bakery still looks as it did for decades. A tiny bit about the original owners of the bakery is found in a newspaper article from 2003 :

“Dapolito, 83, worked as a boy in the bakery on Prince St., decades before the neighborhood came to be known as Soho. His father and mother, Nunzio and Jennie, immigrants from Naples, opened it in 1920 and Tony went on to own it after they died.” - Source

What is interesting about this beautiful old bakery storefront is that the bakery is no longer in the Dapolito family and has changed ownership several times since the article cited above was written. However, it is currently still operating as a bakery and the owners have kept the storefront intact.

Last year, an article was making the rounds on local lower Manhattan blogs about a recent trend that involves new shop owners paying homage to the history of a neighborhood via their store facades. The article is called: In Which We Mark Graves Like Birthplaces . It calls this process authentrification. I love the term but it’s a term that definitely stirs up conflict. This process of authentrification has been happening quite a bit in lower Manhattan and the article does cite Vesuvio Bakery as being an example of this process.

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Broadway buildings in the sun. Soho, New York City.

When I was younger, I thought that the fire escapes on this part of Broadway were staircases that led right up to the sky: modern-day beanstalks for all urban Jacks (of Jack and the Beanstalk). It was as if there was a whole other city up there in the blinding sunlight only accessible to those clever enough to climb up the stairs.

I still like to imagine that this is the case.

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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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Buy “Urban Mirages - Soho Street - New York City” Prints here, email me, or ask for help.

Street art mural. Soho, New York City.

Just a small announcement that you can purchase any of my mobile photography over at my New York City Photography Instaprints Store. Here it is:

New York City Photography on Instaprints

My regular photography store is still over on SmugMug where you can find my more formal photography:

New York City Photography Store

That is all! :)

I hope that everyone is having a splendid evening (or morning/afternoon depending on where you are in the world).

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Buy “The Scream - Street Art - New York City” Prints here, My mobile photography for sale here, My regular photography for sale here, email me, or ask for help.

Street art and a bicycle. Soho, New York City

Through each scattered urban landscape every sidewalk dream unfolds periphally as daily adventurers traverse the city full of promise and silent giddy trepidation.

It’s in the quiet still moments marked by emptiness, vast loneliness and encroaching solitude that these peripheral dreamscapes come into focus.

These moments, suspended in time, marinate in the severity of their potential to eventually etch themselves into the eternity of the mind.

The rest of time moves with the rapid ebb and flow of life like bits and pieces of paint on a wall chipping and peeling off, finally scattering like a discarded lover’s flower petals in the wind.

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La Esquina Corner Deli at night. Soho, New York City

At night when the sun drops below the buildings, lights twinkle like urban constellations against the cool black backdrop of the sky as night wraps itself around the city.

Late night explorers speed past the city’s galactic projections like starships whizzing from one urban planet to another.

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Soho cobblestone street at night. New York City.

There is a certain serenity that can found when wandering New York City streets at night. These moments pause the forward motion and flow of city life. Street lights flicker against wet cobblestone and glass windows stare back languidly. Remnants of previous signs of life sit on curbs while bicycles lean against stoops resting briefly in the calm embrace of the night.

Someone suggested a few months ago that a common theme to my photography was loneliness. I recounted to him how in the earlier days of my website, people would message me asking if I deliberately removed people from my shots. They couldn’t believe that in a city as densely populated as New York City, moments like the ones I am fond of capturing exist in reality. I can definitely say that I have never removed anyone from my shots.

The truth is that even in a city of a little over 8 million people, the city often pauses and takes a breath. The in-between moments where life empties from the streets, when the city becomes a private sanctuary are captivating.

These moments are fleeting and short-lived but they breathe life into the same streets that boast activity in the moments that tend to define them.

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Old and new on a cobblestone street at night. Soho, New York City

The city is composed of many layers. Each layer wraps around the previous layer as the years pass preserved only in fading memory. Under the soft flicker of street lamps you can sometimes catch these battle-scarred battered remains. These transient pieces of the urban landscape are but a pause in the forward momentum of the city; a tattered sigh and a ragged exhale at the end of an excited phrase

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Broadway buildings bathed in sunlight and thoughts on Google +. Soho, New York City.

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Spent quite a bit of time last night exploring Google +, Google’s new social network. My (not totally set-up) profile is here: My profile on Google + . If you are already on there, feel free to add me to any of your ‘circles’!

I have to say that I am really psyched about it! The interface is super easy to use and I am loving the ‘circles’ feature which I think is miles ahead of Facebook in terms of usability and privacy.

Basically you are able to add people to categories called ‘circles’. Everyone shows up as just being a part of your ‘circles’ so you don’t have to worry about others getting upset at which ‘circle’ you have put them in. You can also even disable sharing circle info on your profile entirely if you wish.

The ‘circle’ categories are customizable and there are also pre-set ‘circles’. The pre-set ‘circles’ are ‘Friends’, ‘Acquaintances’, ‘Family’ and ‘Following’. The ‘Friends’ circle allows you to post only to the people you feel closest to and are comfortable sharing certain things with. The ‘Acquaintances’ circle allows you to post to people you have met but ‘aren’t particularly close to’. The ‘Family’ circle is for posting or following people you consider your family. Finally, the ‘Following’ circle allows you to follow people you may not know personally at all but find their content interesting enough to read. You can also then create as many different other circles as you wish. The tools for doing this are straightforward (drag and drop!) making it easy to put the people you know or are interested in into the correct categories. You don’t have to worry about adding your mother or that person you worked with 2 years ago or someone from school you aren’t close to. By using the ‘circles’ function and putting everyone in the best ‘circle’ you can share what you want with who you want at any time.

While Facebook has allowed you to do almost the same thing with their ‘Lists’ function, the settings to do so are relatively buried and not highly intuitive. This is where I think Google + excels in that right off the bat, the way to control how you share is easy and simple to do as it is a major part of their interface. The drag and drop controls are also a pleasure to use.

You can also control visibility of what you share in each post you make as well as edit your statuses and posts once they are made (!) which is awesome (considering that I have never understood why editing of a status on Facebook never seemed to make it to the Facebook interface). The only thing I have found to be mildly annoying so far has been dealing with photos primarily because I want(ed) to upload a small portion of my photos on Flickr to my Google + account. Picasa, which belongs to Google is the photo hosting service for Google + and so I have been spending some time uploading what I need to my Picasa account using a workaround. It’s mainly a sticky point for me since I have quite a bit of photos I want to share on Google +. I am not so sure that this would be a huge issue for others :).

In general though, I am happy with what I see so far. I can’t wait until more people are on Google + and until Google + adds their business ‘pages’ function later this year. I did want to make a photo page there like the one I have on Facebook here: NY Through The Lens on Facebook. However, they are discouraging people from making these types of pages and any non-user pages will be disabled when the actual ‘business pages’ function rolls out. This video which describes the future functionality for those pages sounds great: Google to Businesses: Don’t Create Google + Profiles Yet.

We will see how all of this plays out. I see Google + as being a good step forward in terms of privacy and ease of use for social networks but I am sure that Facebook will end up rolling out new features on par (or better) with Google +. Either way, this is a possible game-changer.

I was already in love with you by then. Soho, New York City.

Sometimes you turn a corner and you see writing on a wall…

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Broadway buildings in the sun. Soho, New York City.

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It’s an absolutely gorgeous sunny day here in New York City today. It’s not humid, it’s not oppressively hot and the sun is out in full force! New York City can get extremely hot and humid in the summer, particularly during August, so when the weather is this beautiful, it’s the best to take full advantage of it.

240 Centre Street. Police Building Apartments. Soho/Nolita, New York City.

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I love this building so much. It was built in 1909 and the dome is made entirely out of copper. The building is known as ‘Police Building Apartments’ which pays homage to its history:

“240 Centre Street, formerly the New York City Police Headquarters building, between Broome and Grand Streets in the Nolita neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, was built in 1905-1909, and was designed by the firm of Hoppin & Koen. It housed the headquarters of the New York City Police Department from 1909 to 1973, and was converted into luxury condominiums in 1988 by the firm of Ehrenkranz Group & Eckstut. It is now known as the Police Building Apartments.”Source

Vesuvio Bakery, a glimpse at a New York from long ago. Soho, New York City.

This is one of my absolute favorite storefronts in Soho. A little over 90 years old, Vesuvio Bakery still looks as it did for decades. A tiny bit about the original owners of it is found in a newspaper article from 2003 :

“Dapolito, 83, worked as a boy in the bakery on Prince St., decades before the neighborhood came to be known as Soho. His father and mother, Nunzio and Jennie, immigrants from Naples, opened it in 1920 and Tony went on to own it after they died.” - Source

The bakery is no longer in the Dapolito family and has changed ownership several times since the article cited above was written. It is currently still operating as a bakery and the owners have kept the storefront intact.

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“Soho Bakery” Posters and Prints are available for purchase by clicking here