St. Mary’s Church, Grand Street — © Brian Rose

Wednesday’s book launch was a big success. Over 100 people came to Clic Bookstore and Gallery–some old friends, my publisher Bill Diodato, and lots of people I was meeting for the first time–even a few of the ubiquitous moochers who took advantage of the beautiful catering provided by Downtown Kitchen. My 13 year old son arrived from a school baseball game wearing his uniform, a nice touch. My mother-in-law, An, from Amsterdam had flown in and was doing the town, staying in the new and hyper-chic Wythe Hotel in Williamsburg.

Most of the week was spent mailing out books to my Kickstarter backers and to those who had pre-ordered books from my website–more than a 100 books. My assistant Chris Gallagher and I made numerous trips back and forth to the post office, the mini-storage where the books are kept, and my studio on Stanton Street just off the Bowery. I am happy to announce that all of the Kickstarter books are now in the mail. We also began delivering books to stores around Manhattan.

A partial list of stores where Time and Space on the Lower East Side can be bought:

St. Mark’s Bookshop, Strand Bookstore, McNally Jackson, Dashwood Books, the New Museum, ICP, NYU Bookstore, the Museum of the City of New York, and the powerHouse Arena in Brooklyn. Although I do best when books are ordered on my website, it would be nice to see people support their local bookstores. We are extremely fortunate here in New York to have such a large number of wonderful shops.

And that’s where this largely DIY publishing venture now stands. I need to sell 1,000 books to break even. I am doing everything I can to publicize Time and Space, but much depends on word of mouth. I believe that Time and Space is a classic photo book, and one of the few like it focused on New York City. Your support is greatly appreciated.

Ludlow Street — © Brian Rose

Without comment.

Review in Conscientious

From Joerg Colberg’s review in his highly respected blog Conscientious:

Anyway, what you can take away from Time and Space on the Lower East Side is that its maker really loves the city and, of course, that he is a very good photographer. The images all were done with a large-format camera, so they offer a carefully constructed frame that might or might not be filled with a lot of life and details. It’s not necessarily a New York I’ve seen too often in photographs, and I really enjoy looking at the combination of cityscapes, street scenes, and details. Various of the spreads pair the same or very similar setting thirty years apart – things have changed, and they haven’t.

Maybe all that talk about money really is just surface, and underneath, New York – or at least Manhattan’s Lower East Side – simply is what it has always been: A pretty great, unique place.

West 29th Street — © Brian Rose

Without comment.

I am pleased to report that the complete shipment of Time and Space on the Lower East Side has arrived in New York. I will begin sending books out to my Kickstarter backers next week as well as pre-orders. The book will officially be on sale on May 23rd and can be bought on my website or from various stores in Manhattan. That’s where we’re starting anyway. I will be celebrating the launch of the book on May 23rd from 6 to 8pm at the Clic Bookstore and Gallery at Centre and Broome Streets in Little Italy. Hope to see you there!

The Manhattan Bridge, 1908 — photography by Eugene de Salignac

The city of New York recently made its huge archive of photographs available online. I’ve spent a little time browsing through the pictures, which include the most mundane tax photos along with quite stirring images like the one above. For several weeks the website was down–I think due to high traffic–but it seems to be up and running now. It’s a great resource, theoretically, but it has an awkward interface and is hard to navigate. Sadly, a majority of the images can only be viewed at very low resolution. You can order high resolution files or have prints made. Municipal Archives website here.

The image above was taken from a more detailed image provided to the media. It shows the Manhattan Bridge under construction in 1908. The image is one of 20,000 images taken by Eugene de Salignac, a city employee, unknown until a few years ago. Since then, there has been an exhibition of his work at the Museum of the City of New York, and a book by Aperture.

From the New Yorker:

De Salignac, it turned out, had worked for the Department of Bridges (later the Department of Plant and Structures) from 1903 to 1934. Vast reaches of infrastructure were laid down in those years, and his job was to provide a record: he shot the construction of the Manhattan and Queensboro Bridges and the Municipal Building; subway tunnels, trolley lines, and ferries.

There’s a terrific portfolio of de Salignac’s images and others from the city archive in The Atlantic here.

Pike’s Slip and the Manhattan Bridge, 1980 — © Brian Rose/Ed Fausty

When Ed Fausty and I did our photographs of the Lower East Side we were unaware of de Salignac, but we, nevertheless, found ourselves standing in almost the same spot–72 years later–as he did when photographing the Manhattan Bridge. Both are view camera images, but the latter exhibits a somewhat different way of looking at the city. The bridge is no longer a central and heroic symbol of progress, however imposing, as it soars over a desolate street corner in 1980. The bridge and the service station have nearly equal weight, structural elements intersect and slash across the frame, as the late afternoon sun spotlights the Texaco star.

Main Post Office building at West 31st Street and  8th Avenue — © Brian Rose

Without comment.

42nd Street near Times Square — © Brian Rose

Times Square is not the tawdry danger zone of the past–a delicious feast for the eyes, a hellish tourist trap–42nd Street a ghoulish gantlet of porn for commuters rushing to the Port Authority bus terminal, an underworld of prostitutes, teenage runaways, pickpockets, and do-gooder preachers leaching off the whole bloody mess. Ah, those were the days.

The tourists remain, more pastel present than ever, discovering their own faux New York. The nostalgia whiners are correct–the present is never as cool, never as rich and creamy as the past–but they too easily miss the buzz of the present. If you’re going to be a photographer–one who bears witness to this time–you can’t wallow in the gauzy, yellowy instagrammatic  glow of the past. You’ve got to be here, now.

Enjoy. Have a gelato.

East River Park — © Brian Rose

Yesterday, I heard that my books are in the port of New York and are in the process of clearing customs. The books should be in my storage space in the next few days. I’ll be sending books first to my Kickstarter backers, and then begin distributing to local stores. The slipcovers are coming separately, so there may be a delay in getting the limited editions out. Time and Space will also be available online on my website and at photo-eye. Launch party coming up on May 23rd. See below for details:

Time and Space on the Lower East Side
Book Launch Party

Wednesday, May 23 • 6:00-8:00 PM
Clic Bookstore and Gallery, 255 Centre Street (at Broome)
212-966-2766
•••
Books will be available for purchase and signing.
•••
Please join us in celebrating the publication of this unique and beautiful book.

Time and Space Web Page

Clic Website

•••

N3rd Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn — © Brian Rose

Bags of PBR (Pabst Blue Ribbon) and Carling Black Label, cheap hipster beers, after another Wlliamsburg weekend.

Expecting Time and Space on the Lower East Side to arrive on or about May 16!

Launch party on Maya 23rd at Clic Gallery and Bookstore. I will be sending invitations and making announcements shortly.

Second Avenue and 6th Street — © Brian Rose

East 6th Street between Cooper Square and Second Avenue — © Brian Rose

Second Avenue — © Brian Rose

Without comment.

Times Square — © Brian Rose

Central Park — © Brian Rose

Without comment.

The New Museum from Reina’s Garden — © Brian Rose

Behind my building on Stanton Street just off the Bowery is Reina’s Garden. The garden was once occupied by a rear tenement–two structures occupied the 25×100 foot lot with a narrow courtyard in between. In the 19th and early 20th century the courtyard would have held privies, trash containers, coal bins, etc. The rear building was torn down years ago, and the front building stood abandoned when in 1992 the city decided to rehabilitate it. When I moved into the newly fixed-up building, the rear yard was a lush green carpet of sod. Unfortunately, the contractor hadn’t prepared the ground under the sod–no topsoil–only the rubble of the old rear tenement lay underneath. The grass died, and for at least a decade the yard was brick-strewn mess.

A few years ago a neighbor took it upon herself to maintain this 25×25 patch of New York City real estate. It’s a pretty modest affair as gardens go, but I think it is beautiful. Not much sunlight makes it into Reina’s Garden. The silvery New Museum towers over it to the west, and the wall behind is formed by 195 Chrystie, an eight story loft building filled with artists and small companies, which once housed a fledgling band, The Talking Heads. In Reina’s Garden the chain link and brick, the graffiti and the ivy, conspire to form their own kind of sublime music.

Reina’s Garden — © Brian Rose

Reina’s Garden — © Brian Rose

Reina’s Garden — © Brian Rose

Reina’s Garden — © Brian Rose

Reina’s Garden — © Brian Rose

Prinsengracht near the Noodermarkt, Amsterdam (4×5 film) — © Brian Rose

Almere, a suburb of Amsterdam (4×5 film) — © Brian Rose

I’ve been doing some renovation of my website portfolio. The two pictures above are from a major upgrade of my Amsterdam on Edge series.

From the accompanying text:

For 15 years I lived in the center of Amsterdam, the famous urban village of canals and bicycles. It was a great life style environment, but it did not interest me much as a subject for photography. What could I add or subtract from this idyll of urban seamlessness? Even the red light district appeared tame, and cozily contained. But I eventually found rougher edges of the city along stretches of the once bustling waterfront, and I discovered the new neighborhoods on the periphery, the playgrounds of Dutch planners and architects. This was clearly where the action was.

The first photograph was taken in the old canal district of Amsterdam and sets the stage for an exploration of the city that few visitors ever see. American tourists–especially–have a grossly distorted image of the city. It is both better and worse than the clichéd image most hold onto–infinitely more interesting and complex. Forget the drugs and prostitution meme. It’s tiresome, and blinds one to the what is really going on.

The second photo was taken in Almere, a new town in the polder, drained land, on the outskirts of Amsterdam. Although the landscape of the Netherlands is notably horizontal, punctuated by windmills and church spires, urban development tends to be vertical. Not tall as in skyscrapers, but narrow lots and skinny buildings standing shoulder to shoulder with exaggeratedly steep stairs, even in the newest houses. The Netherlands has plenty of planned sprawl, but it is denser than the typical American suburb. And although you see more historic architectural references these days, many of these communities flaunt their cutting edge design, theme parks of the new, as it were, even as they fulfill the most plebeian function as middle class shelter.

Amsterdam on Edge

Time and Space on the Lower East Side — © Brian Rose

Update on the book. The printing and binding are complete, and I am waiting–impatiently–for a container to arrive from Germany, where the book was printed. I have a handful of copies that I am taking around and showing. I know that my Kickstarter backers are eager to get their books. I’ve got a half dozen bookstores lined up to sell books, and it will also be available on my website and from photo-eye. And I am working on another possible slide talk.

Book launch party May 23 at Clic Gallery in lower Manhattan! Details soon.

Videographer being arrested for recording Suffolk County, New York, police activity.

Returning to a recurring topic on this blog, the increasing harassment of photographers by police and private security. This comes by way of PDN, the Photo District News, and shows an egregious, but all too frequent, example of police ignorance of the constitution (in spite of this officer’s claim to 30 years of experience). I am putting this up  because it is important that people understand that this kind of thing is going on routinely. Usually, the result is the photographer backing off to avoid arrest–a good idea most of the time–but a de facto trampling of one’s rights. Every time I go out with my camera–especially the view camera–I worry that I will find myself in such a confrontation with authority.

Despite the charges being dismissed–which is what usually happens when these things go to court–the videographer has chosen to sue for violation of his constitutional rights, and the New York Civil Liberties Union is supporting his case. Please consider, as I do, financially supporting the NYCLU or the ACLU.

Houston Street — © Brian Rose

Easter in New York.

One World Trade Center — © Brian Rose

Today I was shooting an architectural interior on lower Broadway with a view from the 25th floor of One World Trade Center. They have a stunning view of the tower and the construction of the transportation center in the foreground. I shot two frames with a 24mm tilt/shift lens–one above the other–and stitched them together in Photoshop. The dark building to the left is the Millennium Hilton, the tower at right is 7 WTC. I understand that 1 WTC is now about four floors from its full height. The entire structure, however, will be much taller once its 408 foot spire is mounted on top.