Series I. Prints

Series I. Prints includes largely black and white, with some color, prints of John Albok's photographs from 1928 - 1979. The primary subject is Central Park. Street scenes include East Harlem (E. 96th - E. 125th Streets) during the 1930s and 1940s; 1960s Greenwich Village; and landmarks, particularly Rockefeller Center. He also photographed Hungarian events in and around the city; parades and demonstations such as the Labor Day parades of the 1960s and Puerto Rican Day parades; the Russian Orthodox Church; 1939 World's Fair; studio portraits; and several prominent personalities such as Governor Herbert Lehman and Hon. Fiorello LaGuardia. One of the oversized printsfrom the World's Fair also has Eleanor Roosevelt. Albok had a strong aesthetic fascination with children and he has a quirky collection of animal photographs.

The prints are arranged by subject, then sub-subjects where appropriate, then by approximate dates. It is important to note that the dates are not reliable. It appears most dates were supplied by Ilona Vitarius, and where she got them from is questionable. In many instances different prints of the same scene have as many as three different dates. For example, a print of a girl having her finger bandaged in Central Park is dated 1950 but a second print of the same scene is dated, on the back, 1953 and on the front, 1958. In another instance, a print of a Sikh couple in Central Park is dated mid-60s and a duplicate print is dated 1970. Researchers should use the dates as a guide but will have to do independent research to obtain accuracy.