Tag Archives: Photography

Wurts Bros. New York City Photography

Posted on April 9, 2013 by | Leave a comment
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Wurts Bros. (New York, N.Y.) Rockefeller Center. Ca. 1931. Museum of the City of new York. X2010.7.1.12414

Many photographers have captured New York City architecture over the years, but few have been so prolific, nor have they documented the construction of so many iconic New York City landmarks as the Wurts Brothers.

In 1894 Lionel and Norman Wurts established one of the first architectural photography studios in New York City.  Over the next 85 years the two brothers, and later Lionel’s son, Richard, gained recognition and many prominent clients including Cass Gilbert (The Woolworth Building), Consolidated Gas Company (now known as Con Ed) , and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (the firm now building One World Trade Center).

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Wurts Bros. (New York, N.Y.) Wurts Brothers Signs. Ca. 1919. Museum of the City of New York. X2010.7.1.2507

The Wurts Bros. worked alongside architects, engineers, and rental agents to record major New York City landmarks under construction during some of the city’s most dynamic years of expansion. Their images are widely recognizable and have been reproduced in many architectural and general interest magazines over the years. The Museum of the City of New York retains the firm’s archives of over 45,000 prints and negatives. Over the last four years our Collections team has worked on cataloging, rehousing, and digitizing this collection, supported by two generous grants from the Leon Levy Foundation.

A good example of the historic record contained within the Wurts Bros. photographs is the construction of the Woolworth Building.  On April 24, 1913, nearly 100 years ago, construction was completed on the 792-foot skyscraper. The Woolworth Building was the tallest building in the world until 1930, when the Chrysler Building would overtake it.

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Clockwise from upper left hand corner: Wurts Bros. Woolworth Building, exterior from S.E Corner. February 3, 1912. Museum of the City of New York. X2010.7.1.3857. Wurts Bros. Woolworth Building, exterior from S.E. April 4, 1912. Museum of the City of New York. X2010.7.1.3875. Wurts Bros. Broadway and Barclay Street. Woolworth Building, general view from S.E. April 8, 1913. Museum of the City of New York. X2010.7.1.4390. Wurts Bros. Woolworth Building, general exterior from S.E. June 7, 1912. Museum of the City of New York. X2010.7.1.3886

The Wurts Bros. captured the majority of their beautiful images utilizing a large format view camera and glass plate negatives, which render the images incredibly sharp, striking, and detailed.  They shot with wide angle lenses and bellows that allowed them to twist and turn the camera for spectacular views that are otherwise impossible to see. To a viewer standing at ground level looking up, buildings appear tall and skinny like a needle. To correct for this misleading perspective, Lionel Wurts crafted a technique of shooting from the upper floors of an adjacent building while skillfully working with the camera bellows and lenses to create perfectly even and square portraits of skyscrapers and buildings. The majority of the Wurts Bros. collection was captured on these large, heavily detailed glass plate negatives, but as acetate film became more ubiquitous they began to shoot with smaller format film as well.

Wurts Bros. (New York, N.Y.) Broadway and Exchange Place. Norman Wurts making photos from 4th-story ledge on Exchange Court Building, 1937. Museum of the City of New York. X2010.7.1.8427

Wurts Bros. Broadway and Exchange Place. Norman Wurts making photos from 4th-story ledge on Exchange Court Building, 1937. Museum of the City of New York. X2010.7.1.8427

Here are some fabulous examples of the type of documentary style the Wurts Bros. are best known for:

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Wurts Bros. (New York, N.Y.) 5th Avenue West 58th Street. Central Park South. Plaza Hotel. Ca. 1905 Museum of the City of New York. X2010.7.1.730

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Wurts Bros. (New York, N.Y.) Broadway and 34th Street. R.H. Macy Co. Ca. 1915. Museum of the City of New York. X2010.7.1.1948

The Wurts Bros. were also contracted to photograph facades and interiors of luxurious New York residences like this one from 40 West 57th Street, giving  viewers a glimpse inside spectacular upper class residences they could only before imagine.

Wurts Bros. 40 West 57th Street. H.B. Gilbert residence, front. Ca. 1910. Museum of the City of New York. X2010.7.1.11

Wurts Bros. (New York, N.Y.) 40 West 57th Street. H.B. Gilbert residence, front. Ca. 1910. Museum of the City of New York. X2010.7.1.1185

Wurts Bros. (New York, N.Y.) 40 West 57th Street. H.B. Gilbert residence, parlor at windows. Ca. 1910. Museum of the City of new York. X2010.7.1.1196

Wurts Bros. (New York, N.Y.) 40 West 57th Street. H.B. Gilbert residence, parlor at windows. Ca. 1910. Museum of the City of new York. X2010.7.1.1196

The Wurts Bros. name is also synonymous with the New York World’s Fair Exhibition of 1939. Richard Wurts, the son of Lionel, documented the construction and grandeur of the fair grounds. In the winter of 1939 he had a one man show of these photos at the Museum of the City of New York called “Building the 1939 New York World’s Fair.” Here are some photos from the exhibition:

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Richard Wurts. Supreme (Food and Sports Building, dome). 1938. Museum of the City of New York. 39.567.1.31

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Richard Wurts. See My Shadow (Perisphere from top Trylon). 1938. Museum of the City of New York. 39.567.1.11

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Wurts Bros. (New York, N.Y.) ca. 1939. View of World’s Fair from a subdivision. Museum of the City of New York. X2010.7.1.15559

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Wurts Bros. (New York, N.Y.) ca. 1939. Richard Wurts with his photograph of World’s Fair. Museum of the City of New York. X2010.7.1.15437

Operating as a commercial studio through several generations of New York City history, the Wurts Bros. had a broad spectrum of clientele. They chronicled everything from skyscrapers to houses; office buildings to schools; tools to artwork. They documented so much of New York City that it’s hard to find something they didn’t photograph.

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Wurts Bros. (New York, N.Y.) Madison Avenue at the corner of 129th Street. All Saints Roman Catholic Church, interior view looking at organ. Ca. 1905. Museum of the City of New York. X2010.7.1.304.

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Wurts Bros. (New York, N.Y.) 31st Street and 6th Avenue, N.W. corner. Greeley Square Building, men’s urinal partitions. Museum of the City of New York. X2010.7.1.6250

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Wurts Bros. (New York, N.Y.) Master plumber with lead windmill model made up of lead wiped joints, lead pipe, 1931. Museum of the City of New York. X2010.7.2.7577

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Wurts Bros. (New York, NY) 40th Street and 5th Avenue. Murphy Door Bed Co., interior, Ca. 1921. Museum of the City of New York, X2010.7.1.5505

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Photographing Our Painting Collection

Posted on October 9, 2012 by | 1 Comment

Here in the Museum of the City of New York’s Collections Department we have embarked on an exciting new project to digitize selected objects from our paintings holdings. This is the first time we have shot paintings and, while every object in our collection requires special attention while being photographed, when we start a new medium there are always new things to consider. In this case we had to think about how to deal with shiny surfaces that reflect light and create highlights that are hard to remove by merely adjusting the angle of our lights. We purchased custom filters for our Broncolor Lightbars fit with a polarized film and then attached a polarizing filter to the lens of our Hasselblad H4D. If you have ever worn polarized sunglasses then you know that looking through a polarizing filter greatly reduces glare and reflections from shiny surfaces. With the added polarizing film on our lights and the polarizing filter on our camera lens we are able to completely zero out all reflections coming off the painting and spilling into our camera. If you would like a complete breakdown of how polarization works read this.

Here is an example of New York politician and judge Gabriel George Ludlow, shot with and without the polarizing filter so you can see how really effective this method is. The artist of this beautiful portrait, John Singleton Copley (1738-1815), was an influential painter in colonial America and is well-known for his portraits of prominent figures.

John Singleton Copley (1738-1815). Gabriel George Ludlow. ca. 1770. Museum of the City of New York. 72.31.

John Singleton Copley (1738-1815). Gabriel George Ludlow. ca. 1770. Museum of the City of New York. 72.31.

We are very excited to make these paintings accessible to researchers and curators to view and study without having to make a trip to our storage facility. The portrait collection consists of prominent New Yorkers by many well-known artists from the early 1700′s through the 1980′s. Some of the real gems of our collection include portraits of DeLancey Iselin Kane and Eleanora Iselin Kane by the artist Thomas Wilmer Dewing (1851-1938). The portrait of DeLancey Iselin Kane is considered his most famous portrait and has been published extensively. The painting is in its original frame, designed specifically for the portrait by Stanford White.

Thomas Wilmer Dewing (1851-1938). DeLancey Iselin Kane. 1887. Museum of the City of New York. 40.417

Other paintings of note are the James Abercrombie Burden Family by Eastman Johnson; Cornelius and Sarah Bogart Ray by John Wollaston; and A Spanish Boy by Alice Neel.  Many of these paintings underwent restoration and cleaning prior to their digitization. Our painting collection ranges from the typical turn-of-the-century portraits as seen above to this dark and moody portrait of John Barrymore in the character of Hamlet painted by James Montgomery Flagg (1877-1960) ca. 1923.

James Montgomery Flagg (1877-1960). John Barrymore as Hamlet. ca. 1923. Museum of the City of New York. 46.414.1.

We set up a temporary studio for three days in a temporarily empty gallery on our newly renovated third floor.  Here is a shot of our setup in action. Please check in with our collections portal in the near future to view this amazing collection in your own home.

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Riding the Subway with Stanley Kubrick

Posted on April 24, 2012 by | 42 Comments

As most New Yorkers know, the subway system is the lifeline of New York City.   In 1946 Stanley Kubrick set out as a staff photographer for LOOK Magazine to capture the story of New York City’s subway commuters.

Kubrick was not the first photographer to depict the New York City subway.  In 1938 Walker Evans shot many amazing portraits of unknowing riders with a camera hidden in his coat. This may have influenced Kubrick’s work. This Kubrick  image is a very “shot from the hip,” Walker Evans-style portrait.

Stanley Kubrick. Life and Love on the New York City Subway. Passengers in a subway car. 1946. Museum of the City of New York. X2011.4.10292.26C

As you can see below, with the exception of iPods and smart phones, activities on the train haven’t changed much in the last 66 years, including shoving one’s newspaper in everyone else’s faces.

Stanley Kubrick. Life and Love on the New York City Subway. Passengers reading in a subway car. 1946. Museum of the City of New York. X2011.4.10292.30D

Stanley Kubrick. Life and Love on the New York City Subway. Passengers in a subway car. 1946. Museum of the City of New York. X2011.4.10292.55E

Stanley Kubrick. Life and Love on the New York City Subway. Passengers in a subway car. 1946. Museum of the City of New York. X2011.4.10292.52B

Stanley Kubrick. Life and Love on the New York City Subway. Woman knitting on a subway. 1946. Museum of the City of New York. X2011.4.11107.16

Stanley Kubrick. Life and Love on the New York City Subway. People on escalators in a subway station. 1946. Museum of the City of New York. X2011.4.10292.61C

Stanley Kubrick. Life and Love on the New York City Subway. Woman waiting on a subway platform. 1946. Museum of the City of New York. X2011.4.10292.81B

Stanley Kubrick. Life and Love on the New York City Subway. Women in a subway car. 1946. Museum of the City of New York. X2011.4.10292.11E

Stanley Kubrick. Life and Love on the New York City Subway. Men sleeping in a subway car. 1946. Museum of the City of New York. X2011.4.10292.73C

Although it is now claimed that chivalry is dead, it was definitely waning in 1946.

Stanley Kubrick. Life and Love on the New York City Subway. Passengers in a subway car. 1946. Museum of the City of New York. X2011.4.10292.56E

BUT romance still thrived on some trains.

Stanley Kubrick. Life and Love on the New York City Subway. Couple playing footsies on a subway. 1946. Museum of the City of New York. X2011.4.10292.90E

Stanley Kubrick. Life and Love on the New York City Subway. Man carrying flowers on a crowded subway. 1946. Museum of the City of New York. X2011.4.10292.37C

Here is an explanation from Kubrick about how he took these photographs:

“I wanted to retain the mood of the subway, so I used natural light,” he said. People who ride the subway late at night are less inhibited than those who ride by day. Couples make love openly, drunks sleep on the floor and other unusual activities take place late at night. To make pictures in the off-guard manner he wanted to, Kubrick rode the subway for two weeks. Half of his riding was done between midnight and six a.m. Regardless of what he saw he couldn’t shoot until the car stopped in a station because of the motion and vibration of the moving train. Often, just as he was ready to shoot, someone walked in front of the camera, or his subject left the train.

Kubrick finally did get his pictures, and no one but a subway guard seemed to mind. The guard demanded to know what was going on. Kubrick told him.

“Have you got permission?” the guard asked.

“I’m from LOOK,” Kubrick answered.

“Yeah, sonny,” was the guard’s reply, “and I’m the society editor of the Daily Worker.”

For this series Kubrick used a Contax and took the pictures at 1/8 second. The lack of light tripled the time necessary for development.

— “Camera Quiz Kid: Stan Kubrick,” The Camera, October 1948

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Love in the Time of Weegee

Posted on March 27, 2012 by | 3 Comments

As we continue to inventory and image the Museum’s holdings from the LOOK Magazine archives , we’ve discovered troves of images taken by famous photographers on assignment for the magazine.  Weegee is one of them.

The Museum has a handful of non-LOOK photographs depicting subjects that Weegee is mainly known for: sensational images of crime scenes.  The image below shows the bloodied corpse of Carlo Tresca, a socialist-turned-anarchist and the editor of an anti-Fascist newspaper.   Although Tresca managed to avoid multiple assassination attempts, his life came to an end while crossing Fifth Avenue and 13th Street.  A black Ford containing a squat gunman pulled up beside him and fired, shooting Tresca in the head.

Arthur (Weegee) Fellig (1899-1968). Man shining light on body of Carlo Tresca, New York.1943. Museum of the City of New York. 84.195.1

Weegee also captured police officers aiding an inebriated man.

Arthur (Weegee) Fellig (1899-1968). The Cocktail Hour. 1950. Museum of the City of New York. 84.195.4

Arthur (Weegee) Fellig (1899-1968). Policeman with wrapping paper-covered body of Lewis Sandano, New York. 1940. Museum of the City of New York. 84.195.10

The grim scene above shows the prone body of Lewis Sandano, shot and killed by policemen as he fled with a stolen overcoat.

Weegee shows a softer side in a 1948 series of photographs for LOOK showing soldiers returning from World War II and reuniting with their loved ones.

Arthur (Weegee) Fellig (1899-1968). Penn Station, 1948. Museum of the City of New York. X2012.4.10720.1

Arthur (Weegee) Fellig (1899-1968). Penn Station, 1948. Museum of the City of New York. X2012.4.10720.14

Arthur (Weegee) Fellig (1899-1968). Penn Station, 1948. Museum of the City of New York. X2012.4.10720.16

Arthur (Weegee) Fellig (1899-1968). Penn Station, 1948. Museum of the City of New York. X2012.4.10720.13

Arthur (Weegee) Fellig (1899-1968). Penn Station, 1948. Museum of the City of New York. X2012.4.10720.24

His Penn Station images are hopeful and sentimental, and the viewer’s desire to look at them is compelled by something other than the grit of humanity.  In either case, however, Weegee’s photos portray an immense love for the city and care for his subjects whether deceased or living.

“Weegee: Murder Is My Business” is on view through September 2, 2012 at the International Center of Photography. All Weegee photographs used with permission from ICP.

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South Street Seaport’s Library and Archive

Posted on March 13, 2012 by | 2 Comments

Greetings from the South Street Seaport Museum’s library and archive!  In October of last year the Museum of the City of New York assumed the operation of the South Street Seaport Museum.  Organizing and cataloging items in the Seaport Museum’s library and archive is one of many projects undertaken in the new administration.  I left my position on the digital team and moved downtown where I’m now working with Carol, the project archivist at the Seaport Museum. She and I are hard at work tackling various projects.

So far, we’ve begun work cataloging and re-housing the photography collection, which contains thousands of negatives, slides, and prints of ships at port, docked at the South Street Seaport, and at sail in New York Harbor, as well as more general marine topics.

Sailing ship, ca. 1900. South Street Seaport Museum. Photography Collection.

Fisherman, ca. 1915. South Street Seaport Museum. Joe Cantalupo Fishing Schooner Collection.

Carol created and arranged the Passenger Liner collection, one of the larger collections in the archives. Programs, photographs, passenger lists, schedules, and promotional brochures are among the many items found in this collection.

Luggage Tags, ca. 1955. South Street Seaport Museum. Passenger Liner Collection.

Matchbooks, ca. 1930-1950. South Street Seaport Museum. Passenger Liner Collection.

We’ve also started to inventory and survey a very large collection of ship plans.  There are over 30,000 drawings and while we’ve just begun to see what’s here, we’ve already found great objects, including an almost complete set of plans for J. P. Morgan’s yacht, Corsair.  In the center of the plan you can see a white square, which is an alteration to the design made a day after the original was drafted, perhaps to conform to Morgan’s taste.

Position of Fire Place for the Yacht Corsair (detail), 1920. South Street Seaport Museum. W & A Fletcher Collection.

Part of this process includes cleaning.  Some plans date as far back as the 1870′s,  and occasionally they are in need of basic treatment to remove dirt.  Soiled objects are cleaned with an archival paper cleaner, which is rubbed against the object’s surface, much like one would use an eraser (visible in the first image).  Below is a particularly dramatic illustration of a drawing “before and after.”

Beam Strap for Engine No. 92, 1879. South Street Seaport Museum. W & A Fletcher Collection.

Beam Strap for Engine No. 92, 1879. South Street Seaport Museum. W & A Fletcher Collection.

Beam Strap for Engine No. 92, 1879. South Street Seaport Museum. W & A Fletcher Collection.

Stay tuned for more updates and stories of our finds in the South Street Seaport Museum’s archives!

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“Painting for fun is catching on furiously among celebrated people”

Posted on December 6, 2011 by | 8 Comments

In an October, 1948 article, LOOK magazine proclaimed, “Painting for fun is catching on furiously among celebrated people. About one hundred Big Names have answered a call for help from the Urban League.  Many have picked up a paintbrush for the first time….”

Joan Crawford, Frank Sinatra, Lena Horne, Joe Louis, and many others donated their original artworks to the cause. Many, including an artistically struggling Joan Crawford who was described in LOOK as “attacking the canvas,”  allowed themselves to be documented during the harrowing creative process.

Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999). Celebrities Paint for a Cause, 1948. Museum of the City of New York. X2011.4.10653.100,101

Although we don’t have images of Lena Horne, Joe Louis, and Frank Sinatra attending the benefit show, we have pictures of the paintings they produced:

Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999). Celebrities Paint for a Cause, 1948. Museum of the City of New York. X2011.4.10653.24

Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999). Celebrities Paint for a Cause, 1948. Museum of the City of New York. X2011.4.10653.4

Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999). Celebrities Paint for a Cause, 1948. Museum of the City of New York. X2011.4.10653.2

This last image begs the question, “Can and did Frank Sinatra paint the saddest clown ever?”

Betsy Bloomingdale - international socialite, style icon, wife to the heir of the Bloomingdale’s fortune, and close confidante of Nancy Reagan – also donated her efforts:

Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999). Celebrities Paint for a Cause, 1948. Museum of the City of New York. X2011.4.10653.108

Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999). Celebrities Paint for a Cause, 1948. Museum of the City of New York. X2011.4.10653.108

Here is “boy-next-door” actor Van Johnson hard at work on a painting:


Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999). Celebrities Paint for a Cause, 1948. Museum of the City of New York. X2011.4.10653.122

The Museum of the City of New York holds hundreds of outtakes from this shoot, images that never made it to print.  Though they were famous in their time, no one on our cataloging team recognizes the celebrities below. Do you?  Help us identify these individuals in our comments section!

Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999). Celebrities Paint for a Cause, 1948. Museum of the City of New York.

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Photographing the Postcard Collection

Posted on November 1, 2011 by | 77 Comments

Allyson photographing postcards.

Ever wonder how much work goes into digitizing a collection for view on our Collections Portal?  Here at MCNY, the digital team has been hard at work numbering, shooting, and cataloging our collection of 7,691 New York City postcards.   It took about 20 days of photography shooting 400 to 600 postcards each day.  After imaging, the files are sent to our catalogers who research information such as location, date, and publisher. The keywords they apply allow the images to be searchable in our database and online.

Our postcard collection ranges from the 1890s through the 1990s, with particular strength in the early 1900s, when a postcard craze swept the nation, as explained by the Metropolitan Postcard Club of New York City:

An accumulation of factors led to an explosion in the popularity of postcards during these years. The American middle class had grown much larger in size, and the excess money it had to spend on nonessential goods was enough to support a large industry [...] Photography and printing technology had also advanced to a point that enabled high quality images to be produced in tremendous numbers and they were. Card dealers began to outnumber booksellers. Over 7 billion postcards were mailed worldwide in 1905, almost one billion in the United States alone; and this does not account for those that ended up in collections rather than the mailbox.

The images include popular tourist subjects such as aerial views of  lower Manhattan and major landmarks, but also incorporate some eccentric imagery and views outside of Manhattan,  like the three examples below.

Greetings from the Bronx, ca. 1910. Museum of the City of New York. X2011.34.1795.

Central Park Menagerie. Feeding a Snake, New York, 1905-1914. Museum of the City of New York. X2011.34.1588.

Kings County Jail, Raymond Street, ca. 1915. Museum of the City of New York. X2011.34.1823.

While most of these were purchased as traveler’s cards to be sent to family and friends back home, quite a few were actually sent within New York City  limits.  In an age before you could just send a quick text or email, postcards were a fast and informal way to get in touch with someone who did not yet own a telephone.

Capturing some of the postcards in a digital format proved challenging.  Most were the standard 3 1/2″ by 5″ but some were specialty fold out postcards. Here is an example of a particularly complicated one.  This was a folded paper postcard from the 1939 World’s Fair. When expanded and viewed through a hole in the front of the card, the viewer sees a three dimensional landscape.  Our photographers found that the best way to capture the view was to tie the postcard underneath the lens and allow it hang open while being photographed.

View captured through the lens. New York World's Fair, 1939. Museum of the City of New York. F2011.33.2119.

Front cover of the postcard - by looking through the cutout one can view the telescoping image.

Several other postcards include special fold-out sections that provide a view of the New York City skyline.

Irving Underhill (d. 1960). New York Skyline, 1900. Museum of the City of New York. X2011.34.3006.

As an added enticement to the consumer, postcard companies often hand applied tinseling or glitter to the views to enliven the image – often incongruously, as in this bedazzled depiction of Grant’s Tomb.

General U. S Grant Monument & Tomb, New York, ca. 1910. Museum of the City of New York. F2011.33.14.

Not every postcard showed exciting and interesting places such as Coney Island and the Empire State Building; here is a postcard showing the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co.’s new women’s lunch room:

Lunch room, Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, ca. 1910. Museum of the City of New York. X2011.34.325.

One of our favorite postcards is this multiple choice “busy person’s correspondence card” showing the Empire State Building.

Empire State Building at Night, New York City, 1934-1940. Museum of the City of New York. X2011.34.3492.

We are in the process of uploading the postcard collection to the Portal. Look for it online in the next week or two.

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The Digital Team Gets New Digs!

Posted on October 18, 2011 by | 3 Comments

The Museum of the City of New York’s digital team is proud to announce that we have moved into our new digital lab!  For almost two years we have been working out of temporary space in the Museum’s research room.

Our previous digital studio

The new lab was  designed by Michael Ulsaker of Ulsaker Studio, Inc., and is fitted with state-of-the-art camera equipment.  Mr. Ulsaker specializes in “designing high-end digital imaging solutions for commercial studios and museums.” In addition to us, he’s worked with the Widener Library and Sackler Museum at Harvard, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Virginia Museum of Fine Art, and many other museum and commercial clients.

Our new equipment includes a larger copystand custom built by Mr. Ulsaker to fit our needs.  It is equipped with a foot-pedal controlled vacuum frame that can accommodate 2-dimensional works up to 46″ by 46″ and which allows us to gently flatten artwork and photographs while photographing them.  The new table is motorized and is adjustable from 9.5″ above the ground to 46″ high.  It also has wheels so it can be moved out of the way completely to photograph large 3-dimensional objects or to slide back and forth so large objects can be shot in parts and then stitched together in Photoshop.

Michael Ulsaker installing the new camera arm

Our camera is the Hasselblad H4D-50ms which is now mounted directly to the wall on a motorized arm that can easily be moved up and down with a hand held joystick.  It can also move in and out from the wall which  saves space and time when framing up a shot.

Michael Ulsaker and Harlan Erskine installing the Lightbars

The lab also comes with new high-end Broncolor Lightbar 120 strobe lights which are mounted to the ceiling on scissor arms attached to a Manfrotto track system.  Each pack has its own Broncolor Scoro power pack which is also mounted onto the rigging system.  The lights slide easily along the track and can be moved up and down smoothly to light objects of nearly any size or shape.  Having the lights mounted to the ceiling rather than on floor stands provides  a more stable and safer environment for sometimes  fragile collections objects.

Mr. Ulsaker’s ingenuity has aided us through every step of this process.  Below is an apparatus he designed and built just for us so we can quickly photograph negatives with the Hassleblad camera instead of scanning them.  This really helps us speed up production on large collections of negatives and allows us to easily position the negatives below the camera and also raise them off the hot lightbox which could damage the negatives and cause them to warp.

We are extremely excited about our new space and are even more excited about all the new types of objects we are now able to digitize and make available to the public. Visit our Collections Portal to view more than 60,000 photographs of historic New York City. Look for 35,000 new images later this fall from the Museum’s prints, drawings, and maps collections.

Our new studio in action

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The Sultry Showgirl

Posted on August 3, 2011 by | 2 Comments

When Stanley Kubrick was a young man, he had the good luck to be assigned a job for LOOK Magazine that allowed him to create an intimate  photographic portrait of Rosemary Williams.

Stanley Kubrick(1928-1999). Showgirl, 1949. Museum of the City of New York. X2011.4.11448.62B

This story, shot in the spring of 1949, captures the young Rosemary as she transforms herself from an everyday gal into a showgirl.

Although a majority of the negatives and prints from this story show the budding Rosemary in her home, preparing coffee, lounging on a chair with a book, or praying at church, they caught my eye because of the continuous thread of theatricality.

Stanley Kubrick(1928-1999). Showgirl, 1949. Museum of the City of New York. X2011.4.11448.42

Kubrick was able to capture the careful construction of a personal image. Within all of these photographs, Rosemary is never out of character.  The combination of the general staged aspect of LOOK and the calculated influence from entertainment studios has created a story that is campy in nature but also emphasizes how celebrities (major and minor) painstakingly construct their own image.

Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999). Showgirl, 1949. Museum of the City of New York. X2011.4.11448.104D

However, what becomes apparent through the constructed moments and interactions within the photos is Kubrick’s cinematic eye. Although many of the photos contain that trace, I was knocked over by the photo above, which reminds me of a still from a film.  The posed figures, purposeful illumination of the interaction between the two characters, and stark background allude to actions happening outside of the frame.

One can imagine that Rosemary was perhaps a commuting showgirl, driving back and forth every night from the depths of New Jersey.  Thank goodness Kubrick happened to be present the night her car got a flat!

Follow this link to get a dose of a fast talkin’ 50s news story about Rosemary Williams and the dastardly Sidney M. Levy.

Although the Museum has documentation that Rosemary appeared on Broadway in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1953 musical comedy, Me and Juliet, as a chorus girl alongside Shirley MacLaine, Rosemary seems to have disappeared into the fog of time. We’d love to find her or discover something about her post-showgirl life. Email us at collections@mcny.org if you have any information. You could win a free reproduction print from our collection as a thank-you!

Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999). Showgirl, 1949. Museum of the City of New York. X2011.4.11448.99F

Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999). Showgirl, 1949. Museum of the City of New York. X2011.4.11448.121F

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Doomed Dirigible Dock

Posted on July 27, 2011 by | 2 Comments

The images in our collection don’t show dirigibles actually docking at the Empire State Building, because no dirigible successfully docked there.  In fact, Christopher Grey in The New York Times gently hints that the idea for a mooring mast may have been a ruse to add a few extra feet to the building.  The tower is 200 feet tall, greatly widening the height difference between the Empire State Building and the second tallest building in the world at that time, the Chrysler Building.

Perhaps it was the idealism and the excitement about new technology of the time, or perhaps it was a polite way to guarantee a few extra feet–either way, the plan didn’t work.  From a modern perspective, it seems poorly thought out at best.  The proposed idea had passengers disembark at the 102nd floor onto a steep set of stairs and into a room about 25 feet across, which would house lounges, baggage rooms, ticket counters, and customs agents.  From there, passengers were led to a terrace about two and a half feet wide and eventually onto an elevator that would take them to the street level.

Nobody researched the cost of such a project, nor was marketing research performed to determine if people were interested in such services; most importantly, there were no feasibility studies.  Therefore, the engineers encountered the major obstacle and ultimate dooming factor of the project only after the mast was built—wind.  At such a high elevation, the wind can create a whirlpool effect and often blows as fast as 30 miles per hour.  Three attempts to connect to the tower failed, primarily due to wind.

This photograph shows the Columbia attempting to dock to the building in 1931.  It made two unsuccessful tries.  The plan was quickly scrapped and soon after NBC began broadcasting from the tower.

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