Renée on the balcony — © Brian Rose

Beautiful weather in New York for the holiday weekend.

Second Avenue and E3rd Street — © Brian Rose

Without comment.

Eldridge Street — © Brian Rose

Without comment.

Division Street (4×5 film) — © Brian Rose

A couple of weeks ago, Blake Andrews, a very fine photographer from Eugene, Oregon, wrote about the photo above from my book Time and Space on the Lower East Side. It’s almost embarrassing to call attention to his generous remarks, but I’m doing my best to promote this project, so I won’t avoid pointing it out whenever someone says something nice.

From Andrews’ blog:

What a shot! Everything layered and lined up just right, the weird textured chainlink and confusing tritone lamp, cars and buildings jutting at weird angles, and that little red hat balanced right where the center cannot hold. And best of all, it’s a photo of absolutely nothing! It’s everyday material. Ninety-nine out of a hundred photographers would walk right by. Not only did Rose stop but he found the one exact spot from which the shot comes together. One inch in any direction would put it out of whack. Who knows, maybe one second in any direction would do the same.

Read the whole thing here.

World Trade Center and Woolworth Building, 1982 (4×5 film) — © Brian Rose/Ed Fausty

One key image of the World Trade Center that I did with Ed Fausty in 1982 has been missing for many years.  I’ve been through every negative I have from that period of time. The 4×5 is definitely gone forever. Recently, however, I found a print of that image in one of my boxes–a 16×20, slightly yellowed, but otherwise in pretty good shape.

I have scanned the print at high resolution, and the much reduced jpeg can be seen above. My vantage point is somewhere on the raised plaza of Police Headquarters–not sure that the same spot can still be reached. To the right above the trees is the cupola of City Hall, and the spire of St. Paul’s is center left.

Be sure to click on the photo for a larger view.

Random photographs while walking around Greenpoint, Queens a few days back.

Franklin Street — © Brian Rose

Franklin Street —  Brian Rose

Franklin Street — © Brian Rose

Commercial Street — © Brian Rose

Commercial Street — © Brian Rose

Battery Park City and 2 WTC, 1981 — © Brian Rose

After completing the original Lower East Side project in 1981, Ed Fausty and I were asked to join several other photographers in documenting Lower Manhattan–funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. Initially we worked together, as with the LES photos, but eventually began shooting independently. Many of the images included the World Trade Center, some of which can be seen here. I am in the process of rescanning everything at higher resolution–I’ve also gotten a lot better on Photoshop and want to rework the images I did four or five years ago. The image above was never printed or scanned until now.

St. Nicholas Church, 1981 (4×5) — © Brian Rose/Ed Fausty

In midst of the furor about the proposed Islamic center a few blocks from ground zero, the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese has held a press conference to call attention to the long stalled rebuilding of St. Nicholas’s Church, which was destroyed on 9/11.

From the Times:

At a news conference near the trade center site, church officials appeared with former Gov. George E. Pataki and a Greek-American Congressional candidate from Long Island — both opponents of the Islamic center — to make their case: Government officials who appear to be clearing the way for the center, which includes a mosque, are blocking the reconstruction of St. Nicholas Church, the only house of worship destroyed in the terrorist attacks.

Beautiful. Let’s all get as nakedly political as possible.

Commercial and Franklin Streets, Greenpoint, Brooklyn — © Brian Rose

An abandoned factory building from the 1930s, and now an environmental superfund site. Made plastic sheeting. Very simple moderne architecture–unlandmarked. Very difficult to track down much on the building, but found this in the Brooklyn Paper. And this from the New York Times. The chain of ownership with regard to this property may be more complicated than the articles imply–who or what is 49 Dupont Realty, the owner of the property and many others nearby. And neither article addresses the legal responsibility of the owners, past or present, for allowing chemical storage tanks to leak into the ground water.

St. Mark’s Bookshop window — © Brian Rose

Time and Space on the Lower East Side is now available at St. Mark’s Bookshop in the East Village at Third Avenue and Stuyvesant Street–that’s between St. Mark’s Place and East 9th Street. The copies at St. Mark’s are slightly more expensive than buying online from Blurb, but they are signed and you won’t have to wait a couple of weeks for a book to be printed. Although it’s displayed in the shop window, since it’s a limited edition artist’s book, you may have to ask for it behind the counter.

As I’ve written elsewhere, this a very collectible book and may not be available in this form later. Please consider buying online or at St. Mark’s. It’s not about money for me, but about convincing a publisher that this book is worth taking on. And please consider posting an encouraging comment on the Time and Space Blurb page. Every little bit helps.

World Trade Center/Ground Zero (4×5 film) — © Brian Rose

As the “debate” swirls around the “ground zero mosque,” (which isn’t a mosque and isn’t at ground zero), here is another view of construction underway on the site. Similar to the small camera shot I posted a few weeks ago, this was made with the view camera.

Liberty and Washington Street (4×5 film) — © Brian Rose

Another image from my walk around the WTC site/ground zero a few weeks ago. The fire truck is answering a call from Ten House, the fire station located on the corner. In the center of the photograph is 1 WTC under construction. To the right is WTC 7, which replaced the tower that collapsed on 9/11 due to collateral damage from the falling Twin Towers. It was the first major building rebuilt on the site.

To the left of 1 WTC is a sliver of the Verizon Building, an Art Deco tower heavily damaged during 9/11, now restored. To the left of that is the new Goldman Sachs headquarters, also a post 9/11 development. To the left of Goldman are older World Financial Center buildings. On the far right is WTC 4, under construction.

Greenpoint flags.

Franklin Street, Greenpoint, Brooklyn — ©  Brian Rose

Franklin Street, Greenpoint, Brooklyn — ©  Brian Rose

Franklin Street, Greenpoint, Brooklyn — ©  Brian Rose

Without comment.

1 WTC, West Street (4×5 film) — © Brian Rose

I finally got my film developed from a few weeks ago. An afternoon walking around the World Trade Center site with the 4×5 view camera. This is a view of 1 WTC, previously known as Freedom Tower, which is well underway, looks like more than 20 stories up. The lower part of the building has a dense network of steel to support the height of the tower as well as provide protection. The horizontal structure is a walkway carrying pedestrian across West Street to the World Financial Center.

Cooper Union, New Academic Building and Foundation Building
© Brian Rose

Just walking by in the light rain with my snapshot camera.

Bedford Avenue and N6th Street — © Brian Rose

The epicenter of…

General Slocum memorial, 1980 (4×5 film) — © Brian Rose and Ed Fausty

From Time and Space on the Lower East Side:

The General Slocum

In 1904 over 1,300 members of the  St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church located on East 6th Street,  mostly women and children of the German immigrant community known as Kleindeutschland, set out for their annual picnic trip on the vessel the General Slocum. A fire broke out while steaming up the East River approaching Hell Gate near the present location of the Triborough Bridge.

The ship quickly became engulfed in flames, and over a thousand perished–burned to death or drowned in the swift current of the river. The loss of life, and subsequent drama surrounding the investigation of the event, was unprecedented. The German community of the Lower East Side was decimated, never to recover. It was the worst disaster in the city’s history until the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 2001.

The Slocum memorial in Tompkins Square Park is astonshingly modest given the scale of the calamity, especially in comparison to the complex being constructed on the World Trade Center site. When Ed Fausty and I photographed it in 1980 it was covered in grafitti making its inscription almost unreadable. At that time, despite living in a building directly across the street from one that had housed four of the victims, I had never heard of the General Slocum.

Louis Kahn bath house, Trenton, New Jersey — © Brian Rose

Philadelphia Inquirer article. Two of the photos in the slide show are mine. The first one, of the new snack bar is actually a progress photo taken by a staff person of Farewell Mills Gatsch, the restoration architects.

Inga Saffron, architecture critic for the Inquirer:

Unable to afford real stone, he chose concrete blocks ground from Delaware River rock, so the building would sit heavy on the earth and you would feel the massiveness of its walls. Close up, you can see the rough block was an inspired choice, giving the modern pool house the dignity of a Levant ruin. The high, solid walls shield a serene refuge. Entering from the recessed side door is like navigating an ancient souk.

Expected completion of the project, mid-September. I’m looking forward to photographing it.