Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Parabola Optica, 1931
Unidentified Photographer, [Jack's Saloon], ca. 1940s
Russell Lee, Sign, Chicago, Illinois, April 1941
Weegee, “Wartime New York: Our Little Businessmen Bounced Around by War… Vacant store becomes baby carriage depot,” January 18, 1943
Aaron Siskind, Chicago 59 (Storefront), 1952
Weegee, [Party], ca. 1953
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Weegee, Billie Dauscha (left) and Mabel Sidney (right), Bowery Entertainers, December 4, 1944
Dan Weiner, El Morocco New York City, 1955
Tod Papageorge, Studio 54 with Balloon, 1978
Weegee, Unemployed Television Actor, ca. 1954
Weegee, [Man wearing costume], ca. 1954
Weegee, A Boy, 1954
Weegee, Artist Bill Dorr, as a Java Temple God, ca. 1954
Weegee, Rembrandt, ca. 1954
Leon Levinstein, [Man in suit, woman in fur coat], 1954
Alfred Eisenstaedt, A New York vacationer in Miami Beach, 1940
Weegee, “Fire on Fifth Avenue,” February 17, 1941
Weegee, Skid Row, ca. 1951
Weegee crisscrossed the country in 1950, promoting a movie called The Sleeping City (directed by George Sherman, “Danger Stalks the Silent Streets in…The Sleeping City,” Universal Pictures, 1950). When Weegee returned to California, he created this book. If Skid Row had been published it would have been Weegee’s third book (after Naked City and Weegee’s People, but before Naked Hollywood). The only texts are Weegee’s sometimes humorous comments or titles.
Unlike Naked City, Skid Row ends with people sleeping, and an image called “Port of Dreams, New Orleans.” In New York, in 1953, Mel Harris edited the same, or very similar, images into Naked Hollywood.
Both Skid Row and Naked Hollywood include author/artist photos of Weegee (perhaps not a great editor of his own photos) with many of his photographs. The first image in Skid Row is Weegee buried under hundreds of his prints; with an arm affectionately around a mass of prints. On the back of the book jacket of Naked Hollywood is a photo by Robert Parent, of Weegee and Mel Harris with prints carpeting and covering every available surface, including the floor, several chairs, and a table. Weegee and Mel Harris look serious, perhaps a bit tired and overwhelmed by the quantity of images. They can’t move without stepping on prints.
Skid Row is incomplete because unfortunately many of the photographs, taped to book pages with black masking tape, have been removed and reused.
Alfred Gescheidt, Little Italy, Manhattan, (Feast of San Gennaro), 1952
Dan Weiner, San Gennaro Festival, 1952
Lee Sievan, San Gennaro lights, 1940s
Weegee, Murder at the Feast of San Gennaro, September 22, 1939
Weegee, “‘Fiesta’ turns into tragedy, body of dead man, lies on street, Mulberry St., Little Italy,” ca. 1939
“The Annual Feast of San Gennaro, New York City’s longest-running, biggest religious outdoor festival in the United States. . . . The central focus of the celebration takes place every September 19th, the official Saint Day when a celebratory Mass is held in Most Precious Blood Church, followed by a religious procession in which the Statue of San Gennaro is carried from its permanent home in the church through the streets that comprise Little Italy.”
Although perhaps less photogenic and cinematic (the first, and perhaps best, five minutes of Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets) than it used to be, it’s also a bit less bloody…
Weegee, Celebration in Garment Center, on Japanese offer to surrender, August 10, 1945
Weegee, Celebration in Garment Center, on Japanese offer to surrender, August 10, 1945
Weegee, Defense Secretary, Robert McNamara, ca. 1966
Larry Burrows (1926-1971), At First-Aid Center During Operation Prairie, 1966
Artists’ Poster Committee, And Babies?, 1969
Unidentified Photographer, [Unidentified Woman], ca. 1935
The Daniel Cowin Collection of African American Vernacular Photography
Unidentified Photographer, Bob Capa, New York, 1938
Weegee, [Press photographers], ca. 1941
Weegee, The boys were busy, ca. 1945
Weegee, Weegee with his Speed Graphic camera, ca. 1944
Graflex, Weegee’s Speed Graphic camera, ca. 1940-47
The New B & J Press Camera, 1941, pp. 4-5
The New B & J Press Camera, 1941, p. 21
Weegee purchased a Speed Graphic camera in 1930, nevertheless, in a 1941 promotional brochure for a new Burke and James press camera, Weegee is quoted: “I use a B&J Press Camera in my work as a free lance Press Photographer. It will photograph anything from a crying baby to a 5 alarm fire. It’s the best all-around camera that I know of – and I ought to know as I’ve tried them all.” The New B & J Press Camera, 1941, , p. 5
And Weegee offers a number of slightly amusing helpful tips, including: “At auto smash-ups don’t throw lighted cigarettes near the scene of the wreckage. Its apt to ignite the spilled gasoline and start a fire or explosion… Play ball with other cameramen. If they should miss a shot, offer them one of yours. This will make friends… And in conclusion, always act like a gentleman. Don’t worry about a press card. Your B & J Camera will get you through any police or fire line. That’s what the boys on the papers use and you will be one of them.” p. 5
In the last chapter, “Camera Tips,” of Naked City (1945), Weegee wrote:
“The only camera I use is a 4×5 Speed Graphic with a Kodak Ektar Lens in a Supermatic shutter, all American made… I always use a flash bulb for my pictures which are mostly taken at night… I also use a Graflex flash synchronizer and the exposure is always the same, 1/200 part of a second stop 1/16, that is, at a distance of ten feet… If you are puzzled about the kind of camera to buy, get a Speed Graphic… for two reasons… it is a good camera and moreover, it is standard equipment for all press photographers..” pp. 239-40
Speed Graphic cameras were made by Graflex, a company based in Rochester, New York, from 1912 to 1973.
