New York

This beautifully illustrated book presents the work of both famous and lesser-known photographers, many of them Jewish. An underlying theme in this pictorial history of New York is the critical role played by Jewish sensibility. Max Kozloff begins with the development of street photography that emerged in New York in the early 1900s with a local school of photographers led by Alfred Stieglitz. Documenting work, loneliness, play, conflict, love, and spectacle, this group came to define urban perception as the characteristic visual experience of modernity. Some photographers also became social activists, observing New York’s ethnic and racial diversity and focusing their lenses on newcomers and marginalized groups.