Irving Herzberg was born May 3, 1915, in Varel, Germany as Iwan Herzberg to parents Sally (Saul) and Gertrude. Herzberg attended elementary school at the local synagogue and later enrolled in Varel's Oberrealschule (secondary school). He received his first camera at age 13 as a gift for his bar mitzvah. His grandfather owned a local cleaning and dyeing factory, which his father took over and later sold. Fleeing the rise of Adolf Hitler, Herzberg left Germany in 1935, followed by his parents in 1939. After arriving in New York City, Herzberg attempted work as a dyer, but the business was unsuccessful. He found employment at a company that imported musical novelties and worked as a self-employed photographer.

Herzberg spent more than 50 years photographing New York. He founded the Trump Village Camera Club, and using his home's bathroom as a darkroom, produced prints to exhibit across the city. He created several series including Faces Across the Aisle: Subway Glimpses, The Hasidim of Williamsburg, Coney Island....My Backyard, and Jewish Life on Ocean Avenue which was commissioned by the American Jewish Congress. Starting in the 1970s Herzberg began traveling across the United States, Europe, Egypt and Israel. Some of the photographs were presented in 1975 as a slideshow with accompanying music and narration, called Let's Go West, performed at the Brooklyn Public Library's Brighton Beach branch, Trump Village Camera Club and the Men's Club of the Temple Beth Abraham.

Irving Herzberg was a frequent patron of the Brooklyn Public Library's Brooklyn Collection and began selling his photographs to the library in the 1960s. He died on May 17, 1991. From November 1995- January 1996 the library hosted Irving I. Herzberg: A Vision of Brooklyn (1950-1989), a retrospective of his work featuring prints given to the library during his life, and posthumously by his wife, Helen Herzberg.