Former Mars Bar at East 1st Street and Second Avenue in 2006 Mars Bar was the quintessential dive bar, its passing mourned by many, including many who never stepped foot in the place. I went in once, and while I admired the exuberant state of decrepitude, glancing at the handful of desultory patrons, I knew […]

On the presidential campaign trail Trump boasted of his ‘success’ in Atlantic City, how he had outwitted Wall Street and leveraged his own name for riches. He would do for America what he had done for Atlantic City, he said. And so it came to be. Brian Rose has documented what remains of the city […]

Topography of Terror, 2019 — © Brian Rose One of the goals for my recent trip to Berlin was to do a series of pictures describing the documentation site known as the Topography of Terror. Of all the many locations in this city layered with history, this is the most profoundly sobering. This was the […]

Borgata casino in Atlantic City — © Brian Rose Built on a barrier island, Atlantic City is increasingly prone to flooding, especially in areas that are home to lower income residents. Unless global warming is stabilized soon, the viability of Atlantic City is in serious jeopardy. A well-researched insightful article about Atlantic City in the online journal Climate […]

Remnant of 1961 Berlin Wall ⁣In a small wooded area tucked in behind the S-Bahn tracks in the north of the city is the only remaining stretch of the original 1961 Berlin Wall. It was discovered recently — hidden in plain sight — and confirmed by historians. You can just make out the Y-shaped brackets […]

The Berlin Wall — © Brian Rose I am in Berin for the 30th anniversary of the opening of the Wall. As many of you know, the former East/West border was the subject of one of my books — The Lost Border — and I have continued to photograph the transformation of Berlin since the […]

The Museum of Modern Art — Picasso and Ringgold — © Brian Rose The Modern’s core collection of paintings from Van Gogh to Cezanne is presented in the newly renovated museum more or less as it was before, with the grand procession leading to Les Demoiselles d’Avignon by Picasso, a painting I have always regarded as […]

Atlantic City, abandoned Trump Plaza As far back as 1981, Louis Malle said that his film “Atlantic City could be a metaphor for things going wrong all over America.” And recently the New Republic opined that “The closure of Trump Taj Mahal casino is a giant metaphor for Trump’s America.” The New Republic Atlantic City […]

Trump Human Resources Office, Atlantic City Today, September 24th, 2019 will be remembered as the day Donald Trump’s stolen presidency began to crumble. The president himself is holed up in Trump Tower — after his desultory appearance at the UN — as Nancy Pelosi announces the initiation of impeachment proceedings. Just a short time ago […]

© Brian Rose It was a poignant day for me in New York — a series of small events against the backdrop of the anniversary of 911. I went by Robert Frank’s studio on Bleecker Street and did a series of photographs of the impromptu memorial in the front of his building. A steady stream […]

Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post The image above, taken a few days ago, is the way Trump wants to be seen — from a low angle — powerfully commanding the spotlight, microphones thrust forward to record his pronouncements, alone on the White House lawn, half shouting over the clatter of helicopter rotors. Alex Wong/Getty Images All […]

TWA Hotel, JFK airport, New York — © Brian Rose Returning from a week’s vacation in Amsterdam, we visited the newly restored TWA Terminal at JFK airport. At least once, decades ago, I passed through this glorious survivor of the early days of air travel. I remember it then as a bit shabby with numerous […]

A few weeks ago I wrote about the apparent business connections between Jeffrey Epstein and his brother Mark, the former chairman of the Cooper Union board of trustees. Obviously, with the shocking death of Jeffrey in federal detention, the story has mushroomed and attention has shifted to the orbit of figures surrounding Jeffrey including his […]

Director D.A. Pennebaker in 2000.Kathy Willens/AP D.A. Pennebaker, one of the leaders of cinema verite, and the maker of “Don’t Look Back,” the groundbreaking documentary about Bob Dylan, died yesterday at 94. I was privileged to take a class from Pennebaker while at Cooper Union in the late 70s. He was one of a number of […]

Atlantic City, 2017 — © Brian Rose It does not take much imagination to see Atlantic City with its extreme juxtaposition of wealth and poverty as a metaphor for much of what is going on in the country as a whole. The casino hotels rise up above wooden row houses and churches like the old […]

© Brian Rose SECOND UPDATE BELOW MAJOR UPDATE BELOW I did not know until a few days ago that Mark Epstein, former chairman of the Cooper Union board of trustees, is the brother of Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted pedophile, who was arrested by the FBI on Saturday. I also did not know that Jeffrey attended Cooper […]

West Side Highway at 59th Street, 1985 — © Brian Rose Two new scanned images from around 1985 when I roamed up the west side of Manhattan. The West Side Highway was torn down after a collapse of one section of the elevated viaduct. I remember walking it during the late 70s. I have a […]

Atlantic City — © Brian Rose I returned to the scene of the crime the other day — Atlantic City that is — where I documented the legacy of Donald Trump’s failed casinos. The city skyline can be seen at a distance from the Garden State Parkway, a row of towers hovering above Absecon Bay. […]