{"id":4784,"date":"2016-05-16T17:46:03","date_gmt":"2016-05-16T17:46:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/booyorkcity.com.routing.yourhost.co\/?p=4784"},"modified":"2021-02-10T12:38:08","modified_gmt":"2021-02-10T12:38:08","slug":"weegees-bowery-flop-houses-drunks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/booyorkcity.com\/weegees-bowery-flop-houses-drunks\/","title":{"rendered":"Weegee’s Bowery of flop houses and drunks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Press photographer Weegee\u2019s Bowery was a Skid Row of derelicts and drunks \u2013 a world away from the boutique hotels and hipster joints that line the street today.<\/p>\n

In the 40s and 50s, it was notorious for fleabag hotels, flop houses that offered 25-cent-per-night beds, and crowded all-night missions that provided food and shelter to those who could afford neither.<\/p>\n

\"All<\/a>

All Night Mission, Bowery, New York, 1940 \u00a9 Weegee\/ ICP<\/p><\/div>\n

Now a new exhibition by the International Center of Photography,\u00a0Weegee\u2019s Bowery,\u00a0<\/em>is shedding light on this underclass of transients, who huddled in the shadow of the Third Avenue elevated railway, and were caught by Weegee\u2019s lens.<\/p>\n

Weegee even lived amongst his subjects in the early 1930s.\u00a0ICP Weegee specialist Christopher George said: “In his autobiography\u00a0Weegee by Weegee<\/i><\/a>, he\u00a0writes for a time he\u00a0lived in a ‘Bowery flea bag.\u00a0Beds in the dormitory were only fifteen cents, but I liked the privacy. The coughing of the drunks went on\u00a0all night long, but I didn’t care.\u00a0I liked the Bowery. It was colorful. At night I would go to the missions… There was no crime on the Bowery’.”<\/p>\n

\"Weegee's<\/a>

Monty Reed, Master of Ceremonies at Sammy’s on the Bowery, New York, 1944, \u00a9 Weegee \/ ICP<\/p><\/div>\n

Weegee\u2019s Bowery<\/em> includes an extensive selection of his photographs of a raucous nightclub and cabaret called Sammy\u2019s, located at 267 Bowery.<\/p>\n

From its opening in 1934, until its doors closed in 1970, Sammy\u2019s provided a setting where adventurous uptown sophisticates could mingle with the bar\u2019s flamboyant entertainers and hard-drinking regulars.<\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/em> described Sammy\u2019s clientele as a mix of ‘drunks and swells, drifters and celebrities, the rich and the forgotten’.<\/p>\n

\"Shorty,<\/a>

Shorty, the Bowery Cherub, New Year’s Eve at Sammy’s Bar, New York, 1943, \u00a9 Weegee \/ ICP<\/p><\/div>\n

Weegee \u2013 whose real name was Arthur Fellig – also appears in a number of the 39 photographs on display, as the boisterous book-launch parties for his publications Naked City<\/em> <\/a>and Weegee\u2019s People<\/em> <\/a>were held at Sammy\u2019s.<\/p>\n

But\u00a0while Weegee photographed hard-living drinkers, he himself was known more for being extremely hard working<\/em>.<\/p>\n

George explains: “The photos of Weegee’s book\u00a0publication celebrations, in 1945 and ’46, are fascinating. In July 1945, when World War II was winding down, a\u00a0few weeks before atomic bombs were dropped on Japan, Weegee was at the acme of his career and was famous.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The Bowery Savings Bank, December 4, 1944, \u00a9 Weegee \/ ICP<\/p><\/div>\n

“The wildly\u00a0exuberant publication parties were the culmination of 10 years of near-obsessive, around-the-clock work as a freelance photographer\u00a0and photojournalist, often photographing difficult things; tragedies like crimes and fires.<\/p>\n

“In the photos, Weegee is celebrating (dancing\u00a0with and kissing many female guests) but he\u2019s also working. During the 1946\u00a0Wegee’s People<\/i>\u00a0publication party, in photos made\u00a0by the genius Simon Nathan and brilliant Lee Sievan, he’s seen wearing a tuxedo and holding a Bolex 16mm movie camera.<\/p>\n

“Portions\u00a0of what he filmed that night at Sammy\u2019s are in his film Cocktail Party<\/em> – which is included in Weegee’s Bowery<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"Weegee,<\/a>

Weegee, U.S. Hotel at 263 Bowery, 1943-45, \u00a9 Weegee \/ ICP<\/p><\/div>\n

The 39 prints in the exhibition have been chosen by George from ICP\u2019s holdings of more than 20,000 Weegee photographs. He said: “More than 300 of his photographs were made on the Bowery.<\/p>\n

“The photos in the exhibition are a mixture of well-known and lesser-known pictures.\u00a0Half of the photos were published in Weegee\u2019s\u00a0lifetime, and about a quarter have never\u00a0been published.\u00a0Almost all the photos were made between Houston and Canal streets, when\u00a0Weegee lived four blocks west of the Bowery.<\/p>\n

\"Sammy's<\/a>

Sammy’s Night Club on the Bowery, December 1944, \u00a9 Weegee \/ ICP<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
“I love all the photos, for different reasons, but at this moment\u00a0a favourite is\u00a0Under the Third Avenue El.\u00a0<\/em>First published in\u00a0Naked City<\/i>\u00a0with the caption ‘But there is beauty along this street of forgotten men… it lies in the patterned black and gold along\u00a0the trolley tracks where the morning sun breaks through’.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
“The photo was made at the intersection of Bowery and\u00a0Broome, looking downtown; the Bowery Savings Bank is barely visible on the right. It’s one of the few photos where the light and infrastructure of\u00a0New York City are the main focus, not the people and not an event.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n
\"Under<\/a>

Under the Third Avenue El, 1943-45, \u00a9 Weegee\/ICP<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
“It was made in the first flush of morning without a flash, captures the glittering\u00a0cobblestones and reflects the patterned radiance and brilliance of the Bowery. It’s a beautiful landscape of a surprisingly still and changing New\u00a0York; and still changing Bowery.”<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

*Weegee\u2019s Bowery<\/em>,\u00a0which is organized in conjunction with the June opening of the new ICP museum at 250 Bowery,\u00a0runs\u00a0until\u00a0Aug 5, at Mana Contemporary<\/a> in Jersey City.<\/p>\n

*Cover photo:\u00a0Norma Devine is Sammy’s Mae West, 1944, \u00a9 Weegee \/ICP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Press photographer Weegee\u2019s Bowery was a Skid Row of derelicts and drunks \u2013 a world away from the boutique hotels and hipster joints that line the street today. In the 40s and 50s, it was notorious for fleabag hotels<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4792,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,45],"tags":[354,263,77,177,52,258],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWeegee's Bowery of flop houses and drunks<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Press photographer Weegee\u2019s Bowery was a Skid Row of derelicts and drunks \u2013 a world away from the boutique hotels and hipster joints that line the street\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/booyorkcity.com\/weegees-bowery-flop-houses-drunks\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Boo Paterson\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" 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