Beautiful vintage black and white photos of New York by Camilo Jose Vergara. As a photographer, he started his career in New York City in the 1960s.
Photographs are a means of discovery, clarifying visions, and constructing knowledge for Camilo José Vergara.
For Vergara, pictures become the starting point for asking questions, linking to other images, and exploring new ideas.
He began working as a photographer in New York City after arriving from Chile in the 1960s. He graduated with a B.A. in sociology from the University of Notre Dame and went on to study for an M.A. in sociology at Columbia University.
Vergara first realized the potential of using photography to document the changes in the city’s urban environment and its effect on social behavior when he was a student at Columbia.
In the end, Vergara turned to rephotography, documenting one location over a period of several years or decades.
Photographers and filmmakers like Vergara have been capturing the plight of New Yorkers living among the city’s urban decay since the 1970s. Vergara photographed deprived areas of New York looking like war zones, areas suffering from both city and state indifference.
Black and White Photos of New York City
Over the course of his career, Vergara has documented poor, minority communities in Chicago, Newark, Detroit, Los Angeles, and sixteen other cities across the United States. This work has produced more than 14,000 color slides, numerous publications, exhibitions, and film documentaries.
In his new book, Vergara intends to use his tremendous archive of work to show how urban ghettos have changed over time and identify the nature and meaning of American urban inequalities.
New York Photographer Camilo Jose Vergara
View of lower Manhattan from the Manhattan Bridge
East Harlem
Girls with Barbies, East Harlem
Puerto Rican wedding, East Harlem
Fifth Ave at 110th Street, East Harlem
Cadillac Fleetwood, Harlem
Lexington Ave, Harlem
Bronx River, Bronx
South Bronx
On the way to Harlem
The World Trade Center under construction from Duane Street
Hoe Avenue at 172nd Street, Bronx
Social Club sign, South Bronx
Lower East Side, Manhattan
Lower East Side music shop
Militant display, window, Bushwick, Brooklyn
Avenue C, Lower East Side
Boy, Morrisania, South Bronx
Hunts Point, South Bronx
1148 Longwood Avenue, Bronx
Lower East Side, Manhattan
Eagle and Westchester Avenues, Bronx
Garage, Bushwick, Brooklyn
113 South Bronx
East 167th Street, South Bronx
65 East 125th Street, Harlem
65 East 125th Street, Harlem
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