A Personal Photographic Portrait of
1970’s New York City
After going to New York City on a college Arts Seminar, a dormitory suite-mate, Mel, suggested we go back for the summer in 1970. We “hitched” a ride with my mother who was going back to New Jersey to visit her family and friends.
We landed in Chelsea, a nice New York City neighborhood that was pretty much midway between the 42nd Street craziness with Broadway theaters, the Chelsea Hotel, where famous artists and poets resided, and the hip Greenwich Village Scene, as well as Soho, Little Italy, and Chinatown, further south. We crashed on the floor in some friends’ apartment. This couple, Fritz and Mary, were the people who ran our college’s Arts Seminar for one of the YMCA’s that ran the program and provided housing for us.
After a few days, Mel and I found an apartment sublet in Brooklyn, near the southwest corner of Prospect Park. The area on the west side of Prospect Park is called Park Slope. The “nicer” (meaning wealthier) homes were closer to the Park. Our sublet was on the edge of this area.
Curiously, four years later, I moved to West 20th Street in Chelsea, not far from where we stayed with Fritz and Mary. Then, a few years later, my girlfriend at the time and I moved about a mile further north in the lower end of Park Slope.
The photos in this collection were taken during the summer, 1970, and from 1974 to 1976. In selecting the photos, I did not focus on the typical aesthetic criteria, which is different for everyone anyway, but rather on the photos that captured some of the qualities of life in New York City. Instead, I selected photos based on whether they triggered an emotion; provided a different perspective or glimpse of history; sparked curiosity, imagination, or wonder; or provided for some possibility of resonating with one’s own experiences. I hope these photos do so for you. Many photos were taken from the hip, literally, in trying to capture the spontaneity of people in the City. However, you may catch people noticing me take their photos.
When this project began I thought I’d have a few dozen photos, but I discovered hundreds of unscanned negatives and slides. There are now about 400 photos in this collection. In order to make browsing a bit more interesting and much less overwhelming, I have sorted photos into a number of thematic categories. However, there are never clearcut ways of determining which photos belong in which categories. There is a lot of overlap, which I am sure you will notice. However, the categories or “chapters” are much more convenient for browsing. You can browse one chapter, then return and browse another without trying to find where you left off or trying to look at all of them at once.
Although I have organized the photos by theme, there are many other themes that swirl through these photos. What thoughts and emotions arise when looking at these photos? What sorts of emotions can you see manifesting in some of these photos?
If you want to explore the differences between then and now, find some of these locations on Google Maps or Google Earth. Then, you can use “street view” to wander through these locations. Many of the places are no longer there. In others, the building are there, but are hardly recognizable. Many of the desolate and run down locations in the photos are now “the” places to go. Much has changed over the past 50 years or so.
Join me for a journey back in time, which seemed “new” and “vibrant,” and sometimes “intense,” at the time. These photos were taken before personal computers, cell phones, and cable TV. However, it was time of social and political activism, of exploring possibilities and new perspectives, and of hope for the future.
The 1970’s
Although Cable TV had been available in certain locations for decades for over 20 years, it became more widely available, although not widely used, in 1972. In the 1970’s, personal computers hit the market, but were oddities and not used beyond the early techies. Cell phones were a thing of comic book fantasies. Cigarettes could not be advertised on TV, but they could be promoted on billboards and print media. The Vietnam War was still going on. Rotary telephones were still in use. Telephone booths were commonplace.
Richard Nixon, “slippery Dick,” was president of the United States, but the Watergate Scandal led to his resignation in 1974. Environmental concerns began to come into focus with the first Earth Day in 1970. Women’s Rights, Anti-War, and Civil Rights protests were continuing. At Kent State University, four students were shot and killed by the National Guard, in May, 1970. Police killed two Black students at Jackson State University in Mississippi.
The Beatles’ music continued to be popular after their breakup in 1969, along with the music of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and George Harrison in their individual and collaborative efforts. The Who, Led Zeppelin, the Mamas and Papas, Jimi Hendrix, Isaac Hayes, Rolling Stones, Stevie Wonder, Eric Clapton, Grateful Dead, Frank Zappa, George Benson, and an assortment of New Orleans and Chicago Blues musicians were among the many musicians and musical groups popular during this time.
The late 1960’s and into the 1970’s, the youth and some older people began to question the assumptions that permeated our societies, including those that were embedded in our politics, education, religion, psychology, uses of and relations to our natural environments. The psychotropic drugs that were popular intensified these explorations and inquiries into our ways of life. Out of these inquiries led many people to interests in a variety of Eastern spiritual practices. Buddhism, the teachings of various Hindu gurus, Sufism and their dance as practice, as well as Islam were among the more popular practices in New York City.
“By aesthetic, I mean responsive to the pattern which connects.”
Gregory Bateson (1979/2002) Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. (page 8)
Navigating & Viewing
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CHAPTERS
PLEASE NOTE: If you see yourself in any of these photos, please contact me about getting free JPGs of the photos in which you appear.
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