Alex Harsley — © Brian Rose

Alex Harsley, master photographer and oracle of 4th Street. I’ve known Alex since the late 1970s when I moved to the building next to his storefront gallery. Alex’s work spans multiple decades and multiple genres — photojournalism, street photography, portraiture, manipulated images, video. His pictures run up and down the walls of his tiny space at 67 East 4th Street, a crazy quilt installation of endless fascination and discovery. Stop in and chat with Alex. You won’t get this at any establishment museum — you have to seek it out yourself.

Alex Harsley photographs, portrait of Jean-Michel Basquiat at left — © Brian Rose

Alex Harsley photograph — © Brian Rose

Scanning the walls of Alex’s gallery, I came across an image I hadn’t seen before of a group of men in front of a storefront somewhere in New York. It reads like a still from an unknown film noir movie shot on the streets of Spanish Harlem. Back when men regularly wore hats, jackets, and leather shoes. One can only speculate the relationships between the figures standing or walking through, the glances this way and that. The man is the foreground is particularly vivid with the patterned jacket, buttoned up white shirt, and mustache over pursed lips.


1679 Madison Avenue near 111th Street

I figured out where Alex’s photograph was taken — 1679 Madison Avenue near 111th Street on the east side of Manhattan. It’s the only building still standing on the block. In the 1950s when the picture was made. there was a thriving Latino community, but it eventually all came apart, like so many places in New York. A bland housing project now looms in the background.

This is but one of dozens of photographs on the walls Alex Harsley’s gallery.

Alex Harsley — © Brian Rose