Tag: urban

Whitey’s

96th St and Second Avenue, New York

When I was a boy, living in the tall building in the background, right, there was a playground on this site which we called Whitey’s because the man who managed it was a Black man named Whitey. I can remember applying to him for the puck and sticks for an air hockey table that was sometimes set up there. The playground was a victim of the 2nd Avenue subway construction that went on for years and years (decades, really) before being abandoned (and eventually resuscitated). This is part of my project to capture memories from local residents as the neighborhood is rapidly gentrified.

Urban Exoticism

East 59th Street, New York

I had a cousin who was an optician. He offered me an after-school job at his shop. He told me he’d teach me how to work the lens-grinding machine but to be careful lest I fall in and make a spectacle of myself.

Some more urban night shots from the archive.

Click on the images below to see them larger.