Camera: Fujifilm X-T3 (23mm lens)
Tag: street photography
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1970s New York, through the lens of a taxi driver
Even if you never experienced it yourself, we have all heard the lore of 1970s New York City. It was a raw, dangerous, and unpolished city that was simultaneously teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and providing fertile ground for artists and many other forms of expression (some suspect and some not).
Jane Jacobs is famous for saying that “new ideas often require old buildings.” And the New York of this era was exactly that kind of city. Artist Donald Judd (a favorite of mine) bought his five-storey cast-iron building in Soho (on Spring Street) around this time (1968). He paid just under $70,000.
So it is perhaps easy to romanticize this more accessible (and equitable?) version of New York. But there were many other things going on the city at this time beyond minimalist art in Soho loft buildings.
This photo essay by Joseph Rodriguez does a great job at telling some of those other stories in a decidedly humanistic way. Joseph was a New York cab driver from 1977 to 1985. And his final years, he had taken up photography and had started documenting the people and the city through his windows.
His incredible photos are also available in this book called, TAXI: Journey Through My Windows 1977-1987.
Photo: Joseph Rodriguez
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Urban American life before the car
This morning I stumbled upon an old (2013) post from Rebel Metropolis that documents urban American life through street photos taken before the automobile.
Above is Little Italy, New York City, 1900. All of the photos in the post are from Shorpy.
The photos are beautiful architecturally and from a photography standpoint. But as is pointed out in the post, they also speak to a different kind of street:
What’s more, the street here is not purely the thoroughfare – it is the essential common gathering place for demonstrations, for buying and selling food, for children to play in, for celebration, for lingering and people watching.
That sounds like a great street. And now I am off to start my day. Because I have meetings all around the city today, I’ll be driving to the office.
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The Siren opens in downtown Detroit
Three years ago I wrote about the design and development firm, ASH NYC. What attracted me to them was how they were vertically integrating design, development, property management, and even hospitality management.
Well they have continued to grow and this spring they opened up a new 106 room hotel in downtown Detroit called The Siren. It is located in the Wurlitzer Building, which the firm purchased back in 2015.
With The Siren, ASH NYC also introduced their first-ever furniture line. It goes to show you just how focused they are on design and on the details. Surface Magazine did a good feature on the hotel, and the firm, here.
The other thing, which I think is very cool, is how they paid tribute to the late and great Detroit street photographer, Bill Rauhauser. Check out the culture section of The Siren website to see what I mean.
So if you’re planning to be in Detroit or are looking for an excuse to be in Detroit, maybe check out The Siren.
Image: Christian Harder via Surface Magazine
