Series I. Street Scenes and Buildings

Series I contains photographs taken in various neighborhoods around the city from the late 1930s through the 1960s. Some of the shots are lively and record activity as he encountered it on the street, such as Chinese-American children reacting to New Years fireworks or Times Square food purveyors handling flaming steaks or airborne pizza dough. Others are quiet static shots of empty streets, construction sites and building interiors. Some of the photographs record establishments or street features which were formerly ubiquitous but have now disappeared from the city, such as a Horn and Hardart automat and a unique three-dimensional trade sign in the shape of a pair of spectacles for an optical shop, both in folder 7. A folder of Little Italy images records the vitality of that neighborhood's commerce, in particular a spirited portrait of the Rev. Frank Compitiello, a Pentecostal preacher who operated a lunch cart at Grand and Mulberry Streets. The Lower East Side folder captures street vendors and commerce there too, as well as neighborhood children playing at an open fire hydrant, and another group mesmerized by a television playing in an appliance store window. Also in that folder is a portrait of a "Sidewalk Fortune Teller near Chatham Square" who holds a highly ornamented piece of equipment.

Folders are arranged in alphabetical order by Manhattan neighborhood.