New York/LES

Saturday and Sunday evenings I got out with the view camera on the Lower East Side. I worked into dark on Saturday taking a picture of the Blue Condo above the Essex Market against a bluish sky with a rising moon. On Ludlow I photographed a tenement building with a ground floor bar opened on the street. A poetry reading in a bookstore/cafe on Allen Street. A restaurant on Clinton Street. An open door with pool table in a bar on Houston. Last, the entrance to Katz's Delicatessen with a saxophone player on the sidewalk. It's difficult to know how any of these are going to come out. All were time exposures with people swirling around, and cars blurring through.


Self-portrait with view camera, Houston Street and Second Avenue

Sunday, I began earlier with late afternoon sun still streaking between buildings and down streets. I decided to head for the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival taking place in Tompkins Square Park. Along the way I noticed the Polish 9/11 memorial in front of a church on East 7th Street. One of the more mawkish of such memorials.


Polish 9/11 Memorial, East 7th Street

In the park there were at least a couple of thousand people seated or standing in front of the stage as well as many who had spread out over the lawn further back. I did several photographs of the crowd, one looking toward the stage, two others of people arrayed on the grass between the trees. The music was great, and I listened for a while.


Tompkins Square Park, Charlie Parker Jazz Festival

Heading east I came across the 6 BC Garden, one of the most cultivated of the community gardens on the Lower East Side. It's a quite a bit more designed than the others with pools, architectural structures, and well-tended paths. The tenements enclose the space all around.


6 BC Garden, East 6th Street

Further east I did several pictures on or near Avenue C. Murals by Chico are everywhere in this area.


Just off Avenue C


East 7th Street and Avenue C

I ended up on East 7th Street between C and D. This block was always one of the best maintained in what was once referred to as the war zone. Strong tenant organization and co-op ownership kept the buildings occupied during that period when everything around was burning or being abandoned. Now, the Flower Box Building, with loft-style apartments costing well over a million dollars, is coming to completion on what was one of the few empty lots on the block.


East 7th Street between C and D

I made a photograph of a series of stoops with decorative railings. Another of one of the housing project towers on Avenue D, and at dusk–heading back west–a synagogue and adjacent tenement.