Trump Taj Mahal, Atlantic City —  © Brian Rose (see more Atlantic City photos) In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea. Donald Trump and King Salman of Saudi Arabia And all should cry, Beware! Beware! His flashing […]

Broadway, one week after 9/11 (4×5 film) — © Brian Rose The three books I have published in the past seven years comprise a New York trilogy — the city seen and explored over an extended period of time. Taken together they form a portrait of New York, especially lower Manhattan, during a period of extreme […]

Times Square — © Brian Rose From the heart of a great sanctuary city in the Northeast. An angry red face threatens. This photo was originally posted almost exactly five years ago — 04/22/12.

Stephen Shore, Wilde Street and Colonization Avenue, Dryden, Ontario, August 15, 1974 Forty-two years ago, an exhibition called New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-altered Landscape caused a stir in the photography world, and the controversy around it, surprisingly, has continued to ripple down through the decades. I was 21 in 1975 when William Jenkins mounted his […]

St. Nicholas Church, under construction, WTC — © Brian Rose When the Twin Towers were destroyed on September 11, 2001, a small Greek Orthodox church, St. Nicholas, was obliterated by the falling debris. A replacement church designed by Santiago Calatrava is now under construction a short distance from the original structure. I snapped the picture […]

Empty AIPAD booth — © Brian Rose There are hundreds of booths at AIPAD (The Photography Show) and thousands of people attending. Lots of different languages overheard while walking around, which is typical of New York. But one booth is empty. The sign says: Due to the recent travel ban and the uncertainty of international […]

DART, the newsletter for design professionals and photographers, is promoting the work of artists who are responding to the election of Donald Trump and the current political fallout from this national disaster. Today, my Atlantic City project is being featured. Thanks go out to Peggy Roalf for providing a showcase for this work and that […]

Dillon + Lee booth at AIPAD I am pleased to be in this year’s AIPAD  (Association of International Photography Art Dealers) show at Pier 94 on the westside of Manhattan. I’ve attended several times in the past, but this is the first time I’ve had a piece on display. AIPAD provides a great overview of what […]

Eons ago — about 10 years — when George Bush was president, I wrote with dismay about how reality was becoming more and more a relative concept, untethered from facts, infinitely malleable. I quoted a Bush administration aide who said: ”That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. ”We’re an empire now, […]

Heinersdorf, Germany 1987 — from The Lost Border, The Landscape of the Iron Curtain — © Brian Rose The Dept. of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) intends on issuing a solicitation in electronic format on or about March 6, 2017 for the design and build of several prototype wall structures in the vicinity […]

We are barely two months into the Trump presidency and it’s been some scary ride. I have gotten a good start on my Atlantic City project, which highlights Trump’s bankrupt casinos as a jumping off point. I don’t know where things go from here — with my project, or with Trump’s reality TV show writ […]

Williamsburg, Brooklyn — © Brian Rose (Painting by Damien Mitchell) Trump unmasked. Update — a quote from Simon Schama’s piece in the Financial Times. I first came across Schama when living in the Netherlands. His book The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age is highly recommended along with his later Landscape and […]

Trump Taj Mahal, Atlantic City — © Brian Rose By the time I get back to Atlantic City, these images of Trump Taj Mahal and Trump Plaza will almost certainly be gone. Workmen were busy removing any signs of Trump’s involvement in Atlantic City when I was there less than two weeks ago. But the evidence […]

(Trump) Taj Mahal, Atlantic City — © Brian Rose On January 24th this year, a northeaster swept up the coast eating away at the dunes erected along Atlantic City’s boardwalk. In front of the (Trump) Taj Mahal the waves nearly broke through the dune barrier leaving behind a sharp cliff of sand. Maps provided by […]

Borgata and Harrah’s casinos, Atlantic City — © Brian Rose Atlantic City has seen five of its 12 casinos close since 2014 (two were Trump casinos) amid ever-increasing competition from gambling halls in neighboring states. That has caused the city’s tax base to crumble. It also led the city’s remaining casinos to file hefty tax appeals, […]

Golden Nugget, former Trump Castle, at left — © Brian Rose Initially, most of the casinos were built on the boardwalk in Atlantic City. Since most gamblers were not interested in the raucous entertainments of the boardwalk, nor were they likely to be found sunning themselves on the beach, several casinos were built on the […]

Trump Taj Mahal, Atlantic City — © Brian Rose The Trump Taj Mahal appears from the boardwalk as a complex multi-leveled building festooned with towers, domes, and a grand staircase leading up to the sky. The reality, however, as seen along Pennsylvania Avenue — the Monopoly Pennsylvania Avenue that is, not Washington, D.C. — is […]

Atlantic City — © Brian Rose Back in Atlantic City on a bright, somewhat cold, February day. Earlier in the week, I read that the Trump name was being removed from the Trump Taj Mahal.I decided that I better go back and get some more photographs of the Taj before it was completely de-Trumpified. All […]