Bookthugnation in Williamsburg — © Brian Rose
From the window of bookthugnation in Williamsburg, a reminder that rewriting or distorting history using photographs predates the invention of Photoshop.
Although I still don’t have a publisher for Time and Space on the Lower East Side, the book remains available for purchase via Blurb. At the end of March I will be doing a slide talk featuring the Lower East Side book at the Midtown public library on Fifth Avenue. I’ll provide more information as the date approaches.
Despite the lack of publisher, I am working on another book, this one about the World Trade Center. Hopefully, an antidote to the kinds of books I expect to see coinciding with the 10th anniversary of 9/11.
I will post more about this soon, but I envision the book as a visual elegy, a collection of several series of images–the Twin Towers glimpsed in early 35mm slides, monumental 4×5 views of Lower Manhattan from 1982, pictures made just after 9/11 of lower Broadway and the memorial at Union Square Park, recent images of the periphery of ground zero, and digital snapshots of Twin Towers images collected since I’ve been doing this blog.
The Dakota Apartments (4×5 film) — © Brian Rose
Finally, I’d like to take note that 30 years ago today John Lennon was gunned down outside the Dakota apartment building on Central Park West. Lennon was not just my “favorite Beatle,” he was one of the people who most inspired me as a young artist–songwriter and photographer. I never had the chance to see him perform live, but once saw him walking through Central Park arm in arm with Yoko Ono.
The photograph above was, which is from my New York primeval series, was taken from within the park. The image was one of several used by the Central Park Conservancy as thank yous to benefactors. My understanding is that a print of this photograph was given to Yoko Ono when she provided the money to create and maintain the landscape of Strawberry Fields, a part of Central Park near the Dakota dedicated to John Lennon.
Strawberry Fields forever.