From the book Helen Levitt published by powerHouse Books A lot has been written in the past week since Helen Levitt passed away at the age of 95. I have just a few comments and an anecdote. Helen Levitt was the quintessential street photographer. Her work was lyrical, joyful, even as she focused on New […]

Houston Street — © Brian Rose Houston Street — © Brian Rose Two photos made within 30 seconds of each other.

Phillip-Lorca diCorcia at David Zwirner Gallery I first met Phillip-Lorca diCorcia years ago at My Own Color Lab, a rental lab where a lot of art photographers were making their own prints. I liked what he was doing, but only saw his work in bits and pieces, and didn’t realize until later that his career […]

© Brian Rose © Brian Rose © Brian Rose © Brian Rose Sarah D. Roosevelt Park on the Lower East Side.

Andrew Moore at AIPAD Went to AIPAD (Association of International Photography Art Dealers) show at the cavernous Armory at 67th and Park Avenue with friends Art Presson and Eve Kessler. Hard to come to any conclusions about the direction of photography from the multifarious offering on display. There was plenty of contemporary photography, but old […]

Bowery and Grand Street The neo-classical columns of the former Bowery Savings Bank festooned with Chinese signs.

Cervin Robinson Went to Cervin Robinson’s opening at the Urban Center Gallery in Midtown. Cervin, who lives on Broadway, has photographed Manhattan’s singular, slightly meandering avenue for many years. Thirty photographs are on display–black and white images and more recent color–all made with a view camera. I will write more about the exhibit once I’ve […]

The Bowery Without comment.

Shea Stadium — © Brian Rose Opening day is not far off for New York’s two teams each with new stadiums. Both promise to be more pleasant places to watch baseball, even if some historical patina is lost forever. Yankee Stadium as I wrote before “will, like the old one, remain a building on the […]

AIG headquarters in lower Manhattan The New York Times: The company paid the bonuses, including more than $1 million each to 73 people, to almost all of the employees in the financial products unit responsible for creating the exotic derivatives that caused A.I.G.’s near collapse and started the government rescue to avoid a global financial […]

Prince Street — © Brian Rose Where I buy the newspaper most mornings, a ritual that has not been replaced by the Internet. For me, at least, not yet. I fear, however, that the traditional paper’s days are numbered.

Houston and Mulberry Street — © Brian Rose Most mornings I walk across town from my son’s school in the West Village to my office apartment just off the Bowery. I’ve been watching the construction of the apartment building above for quite some time. It’s almost finished, another new building entering the market at this […]

Lower Sixth Avenue, 1978, (35mm slide) © Brian Rose Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street, 1978, (35mm slide) © Brian Rose Cigarette ads were ubiquitous in those days.

Jacksonville, Florida, 1978, © Brian Rose (35mm slide) Another of the many slides I shot in the late ’70s.The back of the sign at center is dated 6.27.74, but that was a few years earlier. I looked on Google Maps and found the location on E. Duval between N. Main and N. Ocean Streets. The […]

Lafayette Street (possibly), 1978, (35mm film) © Brian Rose Taken when I was a student prowling around the city with a 35mm camera. I think this was on Lafayette Street in Noho or further down near Chinatown–not exactly sure. I recall lining up the shot on the blue and yellow wall with orange panels to […]

Edward Hopper, Chop Suey, 1929 Hopperesque. It’s a term that’s been thrown around for years to refer to art or literature that evokes the singular environments of Edward Hopper’s paintings. It’s a cliché–not necessarily used disparagingly–in fact, it’s most frequently used as praise. But as a cliché it isn’t the most helpful or insightful way […]

New York City Marble Cemetery, E2nd Street — © Brian Rose New York got hit by a large snowstorm last night that continued throughout much of the day. It was cold for March, and the snow was drifting. Schools were cancelled–a rare occurrence in this city–and I was obliged to spend the day with my […]

Williamsburg, Virginia, late ’70s — © Brian Rose (35mm slide) Another early color photograph from my archive. I recall this being taken at the Williamsburg Pottery, a huge outlet mall for everything from dishes to garden gnomes. Where kitsch and the sublime collide.