My visual memory of New York City has always been in black and white. Although some of the best and most colorful paintings ever created are found in its museums, Manhattan is, for me, a place composed from an incredible range of grays.

Or in the words of Isaac Davis in the movie Manhattan:  “To him, no matter what the season was, this was still a town that existed in black and white and pulsated to the great tunes of George Gershwin.”

Samuel Johnson told James Boswell in 1777 that “when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life…” The same could also be said of New York City. No other city, other than perhaps Paris, has been so thoroughly and lovingly photographed. We learned the vocabulary of urban life through the eyes of the photographers of New York City: from Alfred Stieglitz to Richard Avedon; from Jacob Riis to Diane Arbus; from Weegee to Helen Levitt; from Berenice Abbott to Garry Winogrand. New York is a city of street photographers. People who wander the city seeking to find that core of energy so much a part of the place. 

Recently I had the chance to spend time in the city again. Two separate week long stays. Roaming the city with a new camera renewed my interest in street photography. These images are a selection from these visits. 

I’m a retired architect. For nearly 30 years, I was a principal of FFKR Architects in Salt Lake City. My wife and I now live in a heavy timber cottage built in 1823 over looking St. Margaret’s Bay in a small fishing village in Nova Scotia, Canada. We have a cottage industry puppet dance theater company called Company X Puppets. [Official Website]