Places

After five days, 100 volunteers, and 85 gallons of paint, a new mural on 14th Street is now complete. The Union Square Partnership this week unveiled "Flowing Together," a colorful 7,500-square-foot mural on the pedestrian areas of the 14th Street Busway, between Broadway and University Place. Designed by Queens-based artist Talisa Almonte, the bold street art reflects Union Square as a spot to pass through and historically, a place rooted in social movements.
see it here

Vintage photos document the origins of Black Friday shopping in NYC

Christmas shoppers on 6th Avenue (1910) via Library of Congress

November 27, 2019

Vintage photos document the origins of Black Friday shopping in NYC

Black Friday marks the start of frantic holiday shopping, the day when retailers offer their best deals of the season to lure in eager shoppers. While some gift-givers now choose to digitally add items to shopping carts from the comfort of bed instead, many still line up outside of stores at the crack of dawn in search of major discounts. This is not a modern phenomenon, as these photographs from the Library of Congress of 20th century New York City reveal. Like today, New Yorkers of the early 1900s were drawn to the magical window shops and displays. Ahead, explore vintage photos of shoppers browsing New York City stores looking for the perfect presents, postcards and more.
See the photos here

PHOTOS: See an abandoned High Line before its days as a public park

All photos © Jonathan Flaum. Photo above: High Line Color 1. June 2005.

September 5, 2019

PHOTOS: See an abandoned High Line before its days as a public park

6sqft’s series The Urban Lens invites photographers to share work exploring a theme or a place within New York City. Are you a photographer who’d like to see your work featured on The Urban Lens? Get in touch with us at [email protected]. Photographer Jonathan Flaum started going up on the abandoned High line in the '80s, when it was full of overgrown wildlife, to see some of his friends' graffiti work and find a quiet escape from the city. In the late '90s, he heard about plans to demolish the former elevated train tracks and decided to start photographing the structure. Soon thereafter, Joshua David and Robert Hammond started Friends of the High Line, then a small, grassroots organization advocating for its preservation and adaptive reuse into a park. When they built their website, they incorporated Jonathan's photos to provide a behind-the-scenes look for those who weren't as adventurous to venture up there. The park's first phase officially opened in 2009 and to celebrate its 10-year anniversary, Jonathan has shared with us his collection of photos. Ahead, hear from him on his experiences with the High Line and see how far this NYC icon has come.
See all the photos

Places

The Urban Lens: Capturing the final days of the Lower East Side’s shuttered Streit’s Matzo Factory

Ramon, Streit’s Mazo; © Joseph O. Holmes

June 13, 2019

The Urban Lens: Capturing the final days of the Lower East Side’s shuttered Streit’s Matzo Factory

6sqft’s series The Urban Lens invites photographers to share work exploring a theme or a place within New York City. In this installment, Joseph O. Holmes shares his photo series of Streit's Matzo Factory, the now-shuttered LES institution. Are you a photographer who’d like to see your work featured on The Urban Lens? Get in touch with us at [email protected]. In 2015, after nearly 90 years in operation, Streit's Matzo Factory on the Lower East Side closed its doors. But before the property's new owners demolished the site to make way for luxury condos, the Streit family let photographer Joseph O. Holmes tour the space. Through photos of the four-building factory, its old-school machinery, and its workers, Joseph captured the final days of this neighborhood icon. "If I hadn't shot it, most of it would be forgotten," Joseph told 6sqft. Although Streit's closed more than four years ago and condo building 150 Rivington has since risen in its place, Joseph's poignant photos were given new life this month. The developer purchased some of the photos to hang permanently in the lobby of 150 Rivington as an ode to the building's industrial roots. Ahead, hear from Joseph about what it was like to photograph the maze-like factory and why he finds old machines so beautiful.
See inside and meet Joseph

Places

The Urban Lens: ‘Manhattan Meltdown’ photo series aims to preserve and celebrate food of NYC

6sqft’s series The Urban Lens invites photographers to share work exploring a theme or a place within New York City. In this installment, Aaron Bernstein shares his “Manhattan Meltdown” photo series of famous NYC foods, frozen. Are you a photographer who’d like to see your work featured on The Urban Lens? Get in touch with us at [email protected].

February 15, 2019

The Urban Lens: ‘Manhattan Meltdown’ photo series aims to preserve and celebrate food of NYC

Photographer Aaron Bernstein was overwhelmed when he first moved to New York City for his career in fashion. One way to adjust to his new home was through different food experiences. “Food was this daily thing that I could measure small successes with,” Aaron told us. “If I was able to cook for myself or buy myself a meal, I saw it as a tiny victory." And now as an Adobe Creative Resident, Aaron is exploring the intersection of food and art through the “digital guise” of “Hungry Boy,” an online platform that shows off his colorful, food-centric photos. Aaron recently shared with 6sqft his “Manhattan Meltdown” series, which features beloved food seen as synonymous with the city’s culture-- from Anthora coffee cups to black and white cookies from William Greenberg Desserts, all encased in ice. While the photos are fun and playful, they also represent a bigger truth about the disappearance of beloved Manhattan mom-and-pop shops due to skyrocketing rents and the growing popularity of big businesses. Ahead, get a taste of Aaron's work and hear what the photographer has planned next.
Meet Aaron and see his tasty work

Places

December 11, 2018

See this year’s completely outrageous Dyker Heights Christmas lights

Where else can you see 25-foot toy soldiers, a two-story Santa, or a house decked out with 30,000 lights other than Dyker Heights, Brooklyn. The suburban neighborhood, historically a quiet, Italian-American enclave, has been putting on its legendary holiday spectacle since 1986, when Lucy Spata moved to the area. Her over-the-top Christmas displays started as a way to honor her mother's memory (she also loved holiday decorations) and quickly her neighbors followed suit. Today, Lucy is known around town as "Mrs. Claus" and the Dyker Heights lights attract up to 150,000 visitors each season. 6sqft's resident photographers, James and Karla Murray, recently visited Dyker Heights and captured the outrageous lights and decorations in all their glory. And they were even lucky enough to meet Lucy herself!
See this year's insane Christmas light extravaganza

Photographer Betsy Pinover Schiff takes us on an illuminated tour of NYC during Christmastime

6sqft’s series The Urban Lens invites photographers to share work exploring a theme or a place within New York City. In this installment, NYC-based photographer Betsy Pinover Schiff shares photos from her new book, “‘Tis the Season New York.” Are you a photographer who’d like to see your work featured on The Urban Lens? Get in touch with us at [email protected].

December 7, 2018

Photographer Betsy Pinover Schiff takes us on an illuminated tour of NYC during Christmastime

Two years ago while attending for the first time the Winter’s Eve Festival, billed as the largest holiday festival in New York City, photographer Betsy Pinover Schiff had an ah-ha Christmas moment. If she, a native New Yorker, just recently learned about this huge annual celebration that draws thousands to Lincoln Square, what other Christmas celebrations was she missing? In a quest to find out, Betsy ended up taking hundreds of photos and attending hundreds of events across the city, all within a six-week period. Her curiosity grew to become the basis of her latest book, “‘Tis the Season New York," which was released this fall. Her book takes us on a tour of NYC during its most festive time of the year, from photos of the holiday windows at Saks Fifth Avenue to the elaborately decorated homes of Dyker Heights. Plus, 15 different New Yorkers, ranging from philanthropist Agnes Gund to Betsy's postman, provided their own NYC experiences for the book. Ahead, Betsy shares with 6sqft some of her sparkling photos and tells us how New York during Christmastime becomes a place for "fun, fantasy, and endless heartwarming moments."
See the spirited photos

John Lennon, Muhammad Ali, and the 1970s: Jeff Rothstein takes us back to a bygone NYC

All photos © Jeff Rothstein

October 26, 2018

John Lennon, Muhammad Ali, and the 1970s: Jeff Rothstein takes us back to a bygone NYC

6sqft’s series The Urban Lens invites photographers to share work exploring a theme or a place within New York City. In this installment, Jeff Rothstein shares a collection of 1970s street photos. Are you a photographer who’d like to see your work featured on The Urban Lens? Get in touch with us at [email protected]. Brooklyn native Jeff Rothstein bought his first 35 mm camera in 1969, hoping to get some good shots at the Yankees and Mets game he frequently attended. But what he found was a love for NYC that turned him into an avid street photographer for the rest of his life. Jeff recently compiled a selection of these black-and-white images in his book "Today’s Special: New York City Images 1969-2006," and he shared a subset of 1970s photos with 6sqft. From John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and Muhammad Ali to protests shows at the Filmore East, and candid shots of everyday New Yorkers, Jeff's work captures a bygone NYC with a delicate intimacy.
Hear from Jeff and travel back to 1970s NYC with him

See the Meatpacking District’s 20-year metamorphosis from desolate to under-construction

6sqft’s series The Urban Lens invites photographers to share work exploring a theme or a place within New York City. In this installment, Brian Rose shares his past and present Meatpacking streetscapes. Are you a photographer who’d like to see your work featured on The Urban Lens? Get in touch with us at [email protected]. A native of Virginia's Colonial Williamsburg, photographer Brian Rose moved to New York City in 1977 and captured some of the most fleeting, bankrupted moments of the Meatpacking District in one January of 1985. In 2013, he returned to the neighborhood – impossibly changed – and once again photographed it. He then presented both sets of photos in his 2014 book "Metamorphosis: Meatpacking District 1985 + 2013." Read on for an interview with Rose on old-school NYC, 9/11, and the city's unknowable future.
See the before-and-afters

Places

July 13, 2018

The Urban Lens: Artist Paul Morris twists the NYC skyline into a colorful kaleidoscope

6sqft’s series The Urban Lens invites photographers to share work exploring a theme or a place within New York City. In this installment, Paul Morris shares his digitally altered streetscapes. Are you a photographer who’d like to see your work featured on The Urban Lens? Get in touch with us at [email protected]. New York City is full of urban photographers, capturing streetscapes and buildings as they morph and grow and alter our neighborhoods. But very few can find a way to do this that is totally new, which is why the work of local artist Paul Morris is so refreshing. By juxtaposing his original photography with his graphic design skills, his large-scale patterns "capture and restructure elements discovered in urban landscapes to create innovative perspectives on objects found in everyday life." His latest series focuses on the city's biggest, and arguably most anticipated, new development--Hudson Yards. He's also created "False Mirror" images of everywhere from the Rockaways to the Financial District. Ahead, Paul shares with 6sqft an exclusive collection of his photos and chats with us about his unique process and inspiration.
See and learn about Paul's work

Places

Photographer Ray Simone restores negatives of NYC’s past, pixel by pixel

Central Park, 1900 © Ray Simone

June 14, 2018

Photographer Ray Simone restores negatives of NYC’s past, pixel by pixel

6sqft’s series The Urban Lens invites photographers to share work exploring a theme or a place within New York City. In this installment, Ray Simone shares vintage photographs of New York City he has lovingly restored to stunning quality. Are you a photographer who’d like to see your work featured on The Urban Lens? Get in touch with us at [email protected]. Born-and-raised Manhattanite Ray Simone has a native knowledge of New York, as well as an intimate understanding of its past lives. When he’s not taking current photos of the city, he's in his Williamsburg studio, restoring its past, negative by negative to shocking quality. While some negatives take under an hour to restore, the more badly damaged ones can require more than 40 hours of painstaking work, going pixel by pixel. “You can only work at something a certain amount of hours at a time,” Simone reflects, “You get tunnel vision after a while; carpal tunnel.” Ahead, 6sqft talks to Simone about his photo restoration business and his thoughts on NYC's history and future, and we get a special look at some of his greatest restoration works.
Travel back in time

Photographer Basia Serraty captures Ridgewood’s quieter angles

6sqft’s series The Urban Lens invites photographers to share work exploring a theme or a place within New York City. In this installment, Basia Serraty shares her photos of Ridgewood. Are you a photographer who’d like to see your work featured on The Urban Lens? Get in touch with us at [email protected].

May 31, 2018

Photographer Basia Serraty captures Ridgewood’s quieter angles

While Basia Serraty admits in an essay she wrote for Ridgewood Social that, upon moving to New York from her small town in Poland, the city did not fit her expectations, she has grown to love this place nonetheless. Her photos of Ridgewood, her neighborhood since moving here in 2004, capture the quiet but colorful corners of the nabe, portraying a clear sense of life despite a general lack of people. Ahead, we talk to Basia about her journey from Poland to NYC, her work, and why she loves Ridgewood.
Stroll through Ridgewood with Basia's photos

Places

The Urban Lens: Bill Hayes captures New Yorkers as they are – heartbreakingly real

Star Tattoos

May 25, 2018

The Urban Lens: Bill Hayes captures New Yorkers as they are – heartbreakingly real

6sqft’s series The Urban Lens invites photographers to share work exploring a theme or a place within New York City. In this installment, Bill Hayes shares photos from his book “How New York Breaks Your Heart“. Are you a photographer who’d like to see your work featured on The Urban Lens? Get in touch with us at [email protected]. A writer, Guggenheim Fellow, photographer and, since 2009, a New Yorker, Bill Hayes is quite familiar with the beautiful and painful ways New York City can play with the human heart. He recently published a book of his many portraits of the city's inhabitants, "How New York Breaks Your Heart," showing in black and white and living color some of the city's many faces, all very real and alive and core to this city's aura. We spoke with Hayes, a West Village resident, about the book, the, ity and its people.
Meet Bill and see his photos

The Urban Lens: Hannah La Follette Ryan on her viral Instagram account ‘Subway Hands’

6sqft’s series The Urban Lens invites photographers to share work exploring a theme or a place within New York City. In this installment, Hannah La Follette Ryan shares photos from her “Subway Hands” Instagram account. Are you a photographer who’d like to see your work featured on The Urban Lens? Get in touch with us at [email protected].

May 18, 2018

The Urban Lens: Hannah La Follette Ryan on her viral Instagram account ‘Subway Hands’

While many street photographers have been inspired by straphangers over the years, Massachusetts- born Hannah La Follette Ryan has taken a very different approach to subway photography: focusing on riders' hands. Her viral Instagram account, "Subway Hands," is closing in on 20,000 followers and features nearly 1,000 photos, all shot on her iPhone, of the impossibly varied things people do with their hands on the NYC subway.
Do you spot your hands in any of the photos?

The Urban Lens: Queens-born Kris Graves captures a rapidly disappearing side of Long Island City

Condo Construction, Long Island City, New York, 2008 © Kris Graves

May 11, 2018

The Urban Lens: Queens-born Kris Graves captures a rapidly disappearing side of Long Island City

6sqft’s series The Urban Lens invites photographers to share work exploring a theme or a place within New York City. In this installment, Kris Graves shares photos from his “A Queens Affair". Are you a photographer who’d like to see your work featured on The Urban Lens? Get in touch with us at [email protected]. Queens-born photographer Kris Graves has been shooting his series “A Queens Affair” since 2005. Recently, he published a limited edition and currently sold-out softcover book, LOST LIC, containing some of his thousands of shots of the borough. A hater of glass, he describes his motives to take photos of LIC simply: he wants to capture the rapidly disappearing nooks and crannies of the neighborhood before they’re gone forever. While some of his previous work, including photos of every police precinct in New York, have been comprehensive, with “A Queens Affair,” Graves admits he does not know if the project will ever truly be complete.
The landscapes in many of his photos have already changed drastically

Places

May 7, 2018

The Urban Lens: Richard Koek creates a ‘visual hymn’ of NYC with his candid photos

By Michelle Sinclair Colman

6sqft’s series The Urban Lens invites photographers to share work exploring a theme or a place within New York City. Are you a photographer who’d like to see your work featured on The Urban Lens? Get in touch with us at [email protected]. Dutch-Argentinean photographer Richard Koek gave up his profession as a tax lawyer to pursue his passion for photography in New York City. He now splits his time between NYC and Amsterdam, and Lannoo Publishers just released a beautiful photographic tour of the city in his book, "New York New York: A Visual Hymn." Koek loves to walk and believes it is the only way to truly get to know a city. And flipping through the pages of his book truly feels like you're walking alongside Koek (so much so that your feet may get sore by the end!). As photographer Alice Rose George says in the preface, "New York can be frightening just by its size and number of people, or it can be exhilarating for the same reasons... You can see bits and pieces from inside a taxi or the swollen streets as you enter a theater or restaurant, everything at a distance. Or you can dive into its complexity." 6sqft got Koek to sit down and stop walking for a brief moment to talk about this complexity, his process, and his inspirations for the book.
Hear from Koek and see a selection of his beautiful photos

April 27, 2018

The Urban Lens: How Stanley Kubrick’s early photography led to his iconic film career

By Andrew Berman of Village Preservation

6sqft’s series The Urban Lens invites photographers to share work exploring a theme or a place within New York City. This week’s installment comes courtesy of a new exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York, “Through a Different Lens: Stanley Kubrick Photographs.” Are you a photographer who’d like to see your work featured on The Urban Lens? Get in touch with us at [email protected]. Before he directed films like "A Clockwork Orange," "2001: A Space Odyssey," and "Dr. Strangelove" Stanley Kubrick worked as a staff photographer at LOOK magazine, where he developed a knack at storytelling through street photography. Kubrick "found inspiration in New York's characters and settings, sometimes glamorous, sometimes gritty," all of which is the subject of a new exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York. “Through a Different Lens: Stanley Kubrick Photographs,” tells the story of how a 17-year-old amateur photographer from the Bronx went on to become one of the most revered directors of the 20th century. The exhibit, on view from May 3rd through October, will display more than 120 photos taken between 1945 and 1950, during Kubrick's time at LOOK, and examine the connections between his photography and film work. Ahead, the exhibit curators share with 6sqft a sneak preview of the photographs and discuss their experience working on the show.
READ MORE

Carole Teller’s ‘Changing New York’ captures the city’s 20th-century transformation

Washington Square Arch wrapped by artist Francis Hines, 1980 © Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation/Carole Teller

March 26, 2018

Carole Teller’s ‘Changing New York’ captures the city’s 20th-century transformation

Change in New York is an expected norm, sometimes so constant it almost goes unnoticed. It’s such an ingrained part of the New Yorker’s experience, we often forget just how much our city has transformed, and what we have left behind. To help us remember, we have Carole Teller. A Brooklyn-born artist who’s lived in the East Village for over 50 years, Carole’s also a photographer with a keen eye for capturing defining elements of New York’s cityscape, especially those on the verge of change or extinction. Fortunately for us, Carole kept the hundreds of pictures she took scouring the streets of NYC between the early 1960s and early 1990s. She recently unearthed them and shared them with the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation for inclusion in its online Historic Image Archive. What follows are just a few photos from what we call “Carole Teller’s Changing New York.”
See some of the most captivating photos

The Urban Lens: Carrie Boretz remembers NYC street life in the 70s, 80s, and 90s

50th Street and Lexington Avenue, 1980

March 21, 2018

The Urban Lens: Carrie Boretz remembers NYC street life in the 70s, 80s, and 90s

6sqft’s series The Urban Lens invites photographers to share work exploring a theme or a place within New York City. In this installment, Carrie Boretz shares photos from her "Street: New York City 70s, 80s, 90s". Are you a photographer who’d like to see your work featured on The Urban Lens? Get in touch with us at [email protected]. In New York's bad old days, the city was a house of horrors, but it made for some incredible photos. Carrie Boretz was there through the decades, documenting the madness and the emotion, the cops lunching on park benches, the conversations on out-of-order payphones, the open-air wig stores, the famous and the unknown, all joined by the city and its streets. In her new book, "Street: New York City 70s, 80s, 90s," these images line the pages in a nostalgic time warp to a glorious, if troubled, era. Boretz's photos are currently on display through March 31st at Umbrella Arts on East 9th Street.
See New York when she burned

March 16, 2018

The Urban Lens: Artist Janice McDonnell captures Brooklyn’s waterfront with her paintings

6sqft’s series The Urban Lens invites artists to share work exploring a theme or a place within New York City. In this installment, Janice McDonnell shares some of her paintings of the Brooklyn waterfront. Are you an artist who’d like to see your work featured on The Urban Lens? Get in touch with us at [email protected]. In a city as bustling and overbuilt as New York, it's easy to forget this metropolis' roots as a port city, and that all boroughs but the Bronx are islands. The timeless beauty of NYC's watery surroundings are not lost on artist Janice McDonnell, who has produced a series of paintings of the Brooklyn waterfront. "It started out as just documenting to enjoy myself," McDonell said. That's how it started, but the more she got into it from her Dumbo studio, the more the combination of buildings near the broad harbor and their contrast to the sky began to resonate with her. Ahead, see Janice's paintings and hear all about her inspiration and process.
Dive in

March 9, 2018

New York women tell their real immigration stories in a new photo exhibit

6sqft’s series The Urban Lens invites photographers to share work exploring a theme or a place within New York City. In this installment, Dru Blumensheid shares some images from the Queens Museum's new exhibit Real People. Real Lives. Women Immigrants of New York. Are you a photographer who’d like to see your work featured on The Urban Lens? Get in touch with us at [email protected]. "Statistics do not tell the story of immigration. People do. Women do." This was the impetus behind the new photo and video exhibit at the Queens Museum, "Real People. Real Lives. Women Immigrants of New York." A partnership between New Women New Yorkers, NYC's only non-profit dedicated to empowering young immigrant women, and artist Dru Blumensheid aka BUMESI, the exhibit features photos and videos of 16 young immigrant women taken in iconic locations such as the Brooklyn Bridge and Chinatown, all as a way to show "a nuanced and multi-layered picture... of the barriers and isolation they experience, and of the hopes, dreams, and talents they bring with them." In celebration of Women's History Month, 6sqft chatted with Dru Blumensheid about her personal inspiration behind the project, what she learned from the experience, and how she hopes all New Yorkers can benefit from hearing these stories.
Hear from Dru and see her beautiful photos and videos

The Urban Lens: Vintage photos show the New York Times’ 1940s printing process

Pressroom. Numbering cast plates with page numbers for identification.

February 23, 2018

The Urban Lens: Vintage photos show the New York Times’ 1940s printing process

In September 1942, with humanity in the throes of WWII, one Marjory Collins photographed the inner workings of the New York Times for the U.S. Office of War Information. Her photos depict a culture of white men and machines working at individual tasks for the greater goal of creating the day's paper. The press printing process shown is a world apart from today's digital media industry, where so many human jobs have been antiquated by more advanced technology, which is, thankfully, more diverse.
See all the photos

The Urban Lens: Documenting 20 years of Harlem architecture

6sqft’s series The Urban Lens invites photographers to share work exploring a theme or a place within New York City. In this installment, Albert Vecerka shares some images from his “Harlem project.” Are you a photographer who’d like to see your work featured on The Urban Lens? Get in touch with us at [email protected].

February 16, 2018

The Urban Lens: Documenting 20 years of Harlem architecture