Artist Statement When, as a child, I saw Manhattan for the first time I felt that it was only a place to work… all concrete and stone, hostile and pushy.At 18, I went to Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, where I studied Industrial Design. Between 1955 and 1958, I walked unfamiliar streets and captured images of everyday life. As an observer, driven by many years of being totally alone, I was impressed with the life-force in the city, throbbing with its own inner beat. Like grass growing out of the cracks in the stone, life was everywhere, if you looked.The stark, raw reality of life, rich and visceral made it seem imperative to capture quick images before they disappeared, a fleeting memory, never to be repeated.These pictures evidence the mood; dark, lyrical or documentary, windows into a now vanished New York. Children making their own games and toys. The long-gone Washington Market and elevated West Side Highway. Men wearing hats and ties, was there any other way to dress? The simple visual of children standing on a wall in their pristine ‘Sunday Best,’ to the baker proudly selling his freshly baked bread. The image still evokes that moment of walking into his shop when a new batch had just been pulled out of the oven, still steaming.Likewise, the men in the foundry, completely oblivious of the danger to themselves as they made ships propellers. Scorching heat, sparks flying through the air like a firework display. There was a great deal of transience in my life and all the prints were lost, but after 4 decades the negatives were found. I started printing again! The clarity was such that they have became a ’Time Capsule’ and are, I hope, a fresh take on what was important to me at that time of my life. That is the magic of the camera. The observer and the moment when the image is captured and hopefully appreciated in the future. Although I enjoyed stills, I was also interested in the dynamic of film. As a result, I made a short film in 1958 with two friends, titled “New York is a Summer Festival”That is what my vision was about; it still evokes an eidetic response.