‘NYC Streets Then and Now’ Brings Together 40 Years of Street Photography

Street photographers have faithfully charted the true ebb and flow of New York City for generations. Their cameras capture our everyday, at all hours and in varied states of metaphorical undress. They are the trusted guardians, there to forever-frame the city’s collective humanity as it exhales into a fleeting-yet-recognizable likeness.
 
NYC Streets Then and now gathers some of the old and new guard in street photography to exhibit side-by-side. Curated by Cindy Caroli and Luis Santana, the group show brings together a cross-sampling of more than 40 years worth of work shot by both pioneers and burgeoning contemporaries. OG Clayton Patterson’s images of the Lower East Side of yore mingle next to Khalik Allah’s haunting images from the realities of life at the corner of 125th and Lexington Avenue. Friend to the writing game, Martha Cooper is also featured in Then and Now, as well as work by Sue Kwon, Flo Fox, Destiny Mata, the incomparable Janette Beckman, Alberto Vargas, Robert Herman, Jessica Lehrman, curator Luis Santana, and Aymann Ismail. Viewers will be able to experience not only varied perspective, aesthetic, and technique, but can also trace life and history of both old and new New York.
 
The opening reception for NYC Streets Then and now will feature a Q&A where attendees can seize the chance to ask the photographers directly about their work. Clayton Patterson, Martha Cooper, Robert Herman, Sue Kwon, Janette Beckman, and Flo Fox will all be present to field questions about their experiences shooting in the streets.
 
NYC Streets Then and Now opened Thursday, January 14 from 6–9 p.m. at the Salomon Arts Gallery (83 Leonard St.) and runs through February.