JF Ptak Science Books LLC Post 439
Just another in a short series of looking hard at NYC photographs, looking for miniature scenes within small scenes within sub-scenes within the whole. Ken Burns has made a living by wrapping this process around storytelling, I know, but that doesn't mean that us normal folks can't do it too. This capture is of Greenwich and Morris Streets, made by the John S, Hall & Son firm around 1891. Morris is a very short bugger of a street, barely five houses long, running into Washington Street (which you can't see because of my bad cropping). The group of men waiting for the photo to be made are patient, feet close together, all bowlers straight-on, with one man standing nearly in a puddle. The closer you pull into these men, the more their stories seem wanting to be told.
A suitably dream-like photo, given that this real estate is probably buried now under highway. I'm not exactly sure of that. I might be a little turned around. But the image has that quality that I often see in dream images of holding a 35mm slide up to insufficient light. Anyway, does that sign say "Ballantine Ales"? R-E-S-P-I-T-E.
Posted by: Jeff | 27 December 2008 at 01:23 PM