My father’s enthusiasm for capturing our family life with a twin-lens Argoflex awakened my interest in photography. That was the camera I took, loaded with a new roll of Verichrome Pan, to Persing Square Park in Los Angeles the day of JFK’s assassination. It was there I captured my first “street” photo of an anguished gentleman reading the heart-rending news.
My passion for street photography really took off in 1968 while I was a VISTA volunteer social worker based in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Founded in 1965, VISTA was a kind of domestic Peace Corps; a federal program working through public agencies to lift poor U.S. communities out of poverty.
Packing my manual focus Pentax SLR along with an assortment of jeans, t-shirts and a primer on Zen philosophy, I arrived wide-eyed in the great American “melting pot.” The Lower East Side at that time was a vibrant mix of Puerto Ricans, African-Americans, Italians, Orthodox Jews, Chinese and probably some other ethnicities I’m not remembering. For our first few days in the city new volunteer arrivals were given rooms at the Granada hotel; a stately architectural icon located in the Bedford Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn.
I had barely unpacked when I heard that Robert Kennedy was about to give a press conference in the main ballroom. My first NY photos were taken sitting on the floor of that room about 15 feet from Kennedy and then-mayor John Lindsay. My favorite shot caught Lindsay playfully ribbing Kennedy.
During a week of Vista training I lived in the Bedford Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn with a wonderful, British-Honduran family of 8.
After training I was assigned to work out of the Alfred E. Smith Housing project in the Two Bridges neighborhood of the Lower East Side of Manhattan where I learned to survive on my $50-a-month salary.
While adjusting to this vast new world and building connections with the community, my assignments included efforts to help parents achieve a voice in local school policies; lending an ear once a week to an anti-social, elderly, Russian woman (a lesson in compassion and patience!), and being a tutor and “big brother” to several young Puerto Rican boys aged about 8 to 12. These street kids, raised in large families, mostly with no father present, were the most fun and challenging.
Besides tutoring them with their homework and repeatedly admonishing them not to grab fruit from the sidewalk vendors, we journeyed to cultural and recreational venues, e.g., museums, Statue of Liberty, Coney Island, etc. It was during these trips and on weekends I would strap on the Pentax and pound the streets of Bedford Stuyvesant and Manhattan hunting for the ever-elusive, photo-worthy “masterpiece.” One of my favorite series was shot during a trip with my kids to Coney Island.
Taking the F-line subway from the Smith Housing, we journeyed to the land of near-impossible arcade games, cotton candy, fun houses and thrill rides. (Photos of the boys looking out subway car window; photo of the boys entering the park, side-by-side) “Four poses for a quarter!” One of my favorite shots, the kids are seen looking wide-eyed at their still-wet photo booth portraits. (Photo of boys looking at their photo strip) Working with the kids was a labor of love, and exasperation. (They kept taking fruit from those vendors!)
I had my own B&W darkroom back home in California, and I wanted one to use in NY, so I managed to convince my supervisors of the educational merit of teaching photography and got permission to set one up at the settlement house. I spent timeless hours watching the images appear in the “soup,” and teaching darkroom procedures to anyone with enough interest and patience.
Besides shooting the kids, my sandal-footed wanderings provided opportunities to capture a variety of subjects such as this carriage and rider in uptown Manhattan.
A friendly NYC traffic cop on a blustery winter day.
A neighborhood volunteer consoling a friend.
On a brighter note, one hot August night found me at the famed Apollo Theatre in Harlem where jazz legend Louie Armstrong was feted to a lavish birthday celebration.
Another day I captured one of the neighborhood kids having a bad day, being consoled by one of the local nuns.
The local “beauty shop.”
A musician strumming his guitar in his car.
A group of little ladies perched on a front door stoop.
A shy encounter in front of the housing projects.
An impromptu conga drum jam session.
Apollo 11 moon astronauts, Aldrin, Armstrong and Collins receive a hero’s welcome in Manhattan.
I spent a few days in Washington, D.C. helping to build plywood shacks and listening to speakers from the Poor People’s Campaign, which brought thousands of poverty-level folks from across the nation, housed them in a temporary “Resurrection City” near the Lincoln Memorial and lent an ear to their needs. As if they didn’t have enough problems, rain poured down for a couple of days creating rivers of mud to navigate between the plywood shacks.
A sunnier day at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial afforded me a shot of Coretta Scott King shortly after Martin’s assassination.
To borrow a phrase…It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.
Being a street photography enthusiast is a passionate endeavor that occasionally brings great rewards, achieved only with a lot of effort, patience and luck. Why else spend whole days grinding the pavement, mostly with nothing to show for my effort? It’s an undying photo-optimist hope of stumbling upon and capturing the “magical moment”: a juxtaposition of expression, composition, light and story, that come together to hold the viewer’s eye and heart. It’s the exhilaration of freezing that inspired moment of beauty, human interaction, mystery, humor, human connection, joy, sadness, laughter, surprise or wonder; the myriad experiences of life on this planet that we can all relate to, and that touches a place in us that somehow connects us all.
Dedication
Prior to the publishing of this article, my older brother, Barry, passed away suddenly. He was a fountain of creativity, as witnessed by the numerous comedic, sci-fi movie scripts (always, “that close!” to being bought). He was also a cartoonist, greeting card creator and documentary filmmaker. (He won an award for a loving documentary/tribute to a distant cousin Lou who contributed to the “Deer Hunter” script.)
More importantly, he was a good brother and a good friend to a large circle of friends he remained in contact with, some of whom dated back to elementary school!
I wanted to acknowledge his influence and dedicate this article to him because his never-ending flow of creations, optimism, and love of people influenced my own journey, and will continue to do so.
I also dedicate this article in loving memory of my spiritual Teacher, Dr. Michael Gottlieb, whose guidance continues to bring me new inspiration and creativity.
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