The noted photographer Charles Gatewood (November 8, 1942 - April 8, 2016) maintained a studio at 8 East 12th Street. Gatewood made his name photographing the image of Bob Dylan, “Dylan With Sunglasses and Cigarette,” while working for a Swedish news agency in 1966. He then went on to work as an assistant at the Jaffe-Smith photography studio in Greenwich Village and to complete freelance assignments for Time, The New York Times, and Rolling Stone.

Charles Gatewood According to his obituary in The New York Times, Gatewood was a “photographer of extremes,” whose career is defined by depictions of the “subcultures of strippers, sex-club devotees, bikers, body piercers and fetishists.” In addition to his freelance work, Gatewood developed his own photo documentary collections, and completed over thirty documentary videos. For a number of years he also worked for Skin & Ink Magazine. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

The renowned American photographer Cranmer C. Langill, known for his photograph of the Blizzard of 1888, had his studio at 10 East 14th Street at the turn of the twentieth century.

Langill’s photograph of the Blizzard of 1888 His famed shot was captured just a few blocks south on West 11th Street, and remains an iconic image of the event and its impact on the city. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

This striking 7-story store and loft Beaux Arts Belle Époque structure at 24-26 East 13th Street housed significant figures in the fields of photography and stained glass design, two industries embodying the intersection of commerce and art which was so characteristic of this area.

Imperial Plates advertised by G. Gennert, 1917 In 1892 a new building permit was filed for 24-26 East 13th Street by G. Gennert, a photographic materials company. Gennert Brothers Photo Supply was founded in 1856 by German immigrant Gottlieb Gennert and his brother. It was one of the first photo supply houses in America, and became famous for its daguerreotype mats, cases and other supplies. By 1869 Gottlieb broke out to start his own firm, G. Gennert, and soon his business was the third largest photo supply business in the country.

The Sylvar Camera advertised by G. Gennert, 1911 Gennert expanded to have shops not only in New York but Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, introducing innovative new types of cameras including the ‘Montauk’ and the ‘Penny Picture.’ By 1892, Gennert had outgrown his business’ home at 54 East 10th Street (at Broadway, within this area but demolished), and two of his sons, Maurice G. and Gustav C. had taken over the daily operations of the business. They hired the architectural firm of DeLemos & Corden to construct the building at 24-26 East 13th Street. G. Gennert also operated out of 30 East 13th Street. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

30 East 13th Street was once the home of G. Gennert, also located down the block at 24-26 East 13th Street. Gennert Brothers Photo Supply was founded in 1856 by German immigrant Gottlieb Gennert and his brother. It was one of the first photo supply houses in America, and became famous for its daguerreotype mats, cases and other supplies. By 1869 Gottlieb broke out to start his own firm, G. Gennert, and soon his business was the third largest photo supply business in the country.

Imperial Plates advertised by G. Gennert, 1917 It was one of the first photo supply houses in America, and became famous for its daguerreotype mats, cases and other supplies. By 1869 Gottlieb broke out to start his own firm, G. Gennert, and soon his business was the third largest photo supply business in the country.

The Sylvar Camera advertised by G. Gennert, 1911 Gennert expanded to have shops not only in New York but Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, introducing innovative new types of cameras including the ‘Montauk’ and the ‘Penny Picture.’ By 1892, Gennert had outgrown his business’ home at 54 East 10th Street (at Broadway, within this area but demolished), and two of his sons, Maurice G. and Gustav C. had taken over the daily operations of the business. They then hired the architectural firm of DeLemos & Corden to construct 24-26 East 13th Street. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

Film producers and directors David Berger and Holly Maxson lived at 4 East 12th Street.

Milton Hinton, 1930 Here they maintained a photo archive here dedicated to jazz musician and photographer Milton J. Hinton. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

The Village Voice newspaper began in 1955 in a tiny space in Sheridan Square, later moving to 80 University Place in the 1970s, then to 842 Broadway, and to 36 Cooper Square in 1991.

Last print cover of "The Village Voice" newspaper. Photo by Fred W. McDarrah, 1965 It was the brainchild of New School alumni Dan Wolf and Edwin Fancher, who hoped to respond to the lack of reporting on the culture of the Village. They had early financial backing from Norman Mailer and knew many writers, who became columnists or wrote one-off essays for the alternative paper.

Gloria McDarrah, 2014 Fred W. McDarrah was the primary (and often only) photographer for The Village Voice for decades, since the newspaper’s inception in 1955. He covered the Village counterculture, Gay Rights, Women’s Rights, the Vietnam War, Experimental Theater, and other movements centered around the Village. He was married to Gloria McDarrah, who after his death continued to preserve his body of work. Listen to Edwin Fancher’s Oral History here. Listen to Gloria McDarrah’s Oral History here. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

Over the years, the four buildings that comprised the Albert Hotel hosted many of the most prominent names in American arts, literature, music, and radical politics. Photographer Keith Carter lived in a room in the Albert after graduating from college in 1940. In 1948, members of the amateaur photographer’s group the Photo League leased space in the basement of the hotel. Members at the time included Paul Strand, Sid Grossman, Walter Rosenblum, Arthur Leipzig, Nancy Newhall, Barbara Morgan, Ruth Orkin, and Berenice Abbott.

Photo by Berenice Abbott, 1935 The Photo League, which operated throughout the Depression, World War II, and Red Scare periods, emerged from the worker’s movement. The photographers that were part of this group used documentary photography to draw attention to issues of class, labor, and equity. The Photo League was also a gathering place for first-generation Jewish-Americans. In 1947, as McCarthyism rose in prominence, the League was blacklisted for its alleged connection to the Communist Party. Although a number of national figures including Ansel Adams, Beaumont and Nancy Newhall, and Paul Strand stood up in support of the organization, the League was forced to disband in 1951. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

This stunning seven-story Renaissance Revival style loft building was designed in 1895 by Louis Korn. From its opening until 1900, the building was home to two highly significant entities in the history of photography: Scovill and Adams Company (previously Scovill Manufacturing Company) and its publication, The Photographic Times. Scovill and The Photographic Times are credited with being “largely responsible for the birth and progress of photographic commerce in 19th century America,” with The Photographic Times also called “one of America’s earliest and most important photographic journals.” By 1880, its publisher claimed The Photographic Times was the highest circulating photographic magazine in the United States. The Scovill Manufacturing Company was founded originally in 1802 in Waterbury, Connecticut (known today as MoritoScovill) as a button and sewing hardware factory, supplying uniform buttons in the early 19th century to the United States Army and Navy. In 1850, it incorporated as the Scovill Manufacturing Company, reflecting its expansion into the manufacturing of other products, including some of the earliest cameras and plates. In 1842, Scovill was the first company in the United States to make the silver-plated sheets of copper used for daguerreotypes, and in 1846 it opened its first New York City branch office at 57 Maiden Lane. By 1889 the company was known as the Scovill and Adams Company. In January of 1871, the Scovill and Adams Company issued what would become The Photographic Times as a free supplement to the Philadelphia Photographer, a monthly independent journal started in 1864 which set the standard for photographic journals at the time. Later that year, The Photographic Times came under its own imprint.

Cover of “The Philadelphia Photographer,” 1875 During the years that the magazine was at this location, its editor was Walter E. Woodbury. Under Woodbury’s leadership the magazine would promote itself as a “high-class art magazine” and transform from a 16-page weekly to a 64-page monthly with quadruple the number of pictures. The Veritas cover shown here was used by the publication between 1895 and 1901 and showcased the magazine’s approach. Printed in bold red, the medallions at the bottom show Science in the form of a bearded man and Art in the form of a beautiful woman wearing a laurel crown. Woodbury also made a significant push for the magazine to feature cutting edge artistic photography, cited as perhaps the most important legacy of the magazine. Management of the magazine committed to featuring as the frontpiece of each issue reproductions of hand-pulled photogravures, the quality of which improved under Woodbury. Also included in the magazine were gravure-printed plates of photographs in the Pictorial style, a turn-of-the-last century movement that emphasized aesthetics over documenting reality. Some of these photographers included Alfred Stieglitz, Rudolf Eickemeyer, Jr., Frances Benjamin Johnston, Charles Berg, Alfred Clements, William Fraser, John Dumont, Robert Demachy, James Breese, Joseph Keiley and Zaida Ben-Yusuf. Woodbury left the magazine in 1899, although he would return in 1901. As reported in its January, 1896 issue: “About the 1st of January next, the Scovill & Adams Company of New York will remove to their new home at 60 and 62 East 11th Street, a magnificent seven-story and basement building, a few doors from Broadway.” In the late 19th century, the area south of Union Square, particularly along Broadway, had become a center of the photomaking industry in New York and the world. The article went on to explain that Scovill’s editorial rooms (complete with a photographic and reference library) and offices would be on the main floor of 60-62 East 11th Street, and that the lofts would house cases and goods. Additionally there would be a specially-constructed dark room for patrons and friends and a skylight at the roof facing north for experimental and testing purposes. The fire-proof vault under the sidewalk would house all chemicals “of an explosive nature.” Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

Photographer James Henry Wright, a popular 19th-century New York artist specializing in portraiture, still lifes, and landscapes, maintained a studio at 835 Broadway. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

According to the 1885 book New York’s Greatest Industries, 813 Broadway hosted one of New York’s premier photographers of the late 1800s, Mr. Macnabb. The book states that he was “a leading photographer of the metropolis, and one who is an authority on all matters pertaining to photographic art…No studio in the city is more eligibly or centrally located…he is considered to be one of the foremost in this artist profession today.” Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

The Robert Samuel Gallery opened at 795 Broadway in November of 1978. Along with the Leslie Lohman, Rob of Amsterdam, and Stompers galleries, it specialized in photography by gay male artists, showing the work of Peter Hujar, Christopher Makos, and Robert Mapplethorpe. The Robert Samuel Gallery was committed to featuring both established and non-established artists.

According to Frances Terpak and Michelle Brunnick’s book Robert Mapplethorpe: The Archive, Mapplethorpe was also an active partner in the business, which offered an opportunity to introduce the image of the sexual male into the mainstream art world. The gallery held solo and group exhibitions of Mapplethorpe’s work until it closed in the early 1980s. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

Mathew Brady, c. 1875 The current structure at this location was built c. 1955. At the northwest corner of Broadway and East 10th Street, 785 Broadway used to stand and it was the studio of a very significant 19th century photographer, Mathew Brady. Brady is best known as the photographer of the American Civil War where he and his staff captured for the first time on camera the tragedies of war. A revolutionary way of broadcasting disturbing images to an as-then unaware public, hundreds of photographs of soldiers lying dead in fields became accessible to households across the country. Though Brady often staged scenes and “touched up” photographs to maximize the horror of his subject matter, he was nonetheless an integral figure in the history of photographic documentation and has since become known as “the father of photojournalism.”

Photo of Abraham Lincoln by Mathew Brady, 1860-1865 On February 27, 1860, relatively unknown presidential hopeful Abraham Lincoln gave his celebrated Cooper Union address at the Cooper Union Foundation Building at Cooper Square between Astor Place and East 7th Street. Knowing the South was on the brink of secession, Lincoln focused his speech on the importance of preserving the Union by outlawing slavery in free states but not in the South, an institution he would later abolish in 1863 during the height of the Civil War. But earlier in the day, before that historic speech set into motion Lincoln’s rise to the presidency, he had called on photographer Mathew Brady to take his portrait at his nearby studio in what is now known as NoHo. This temporary studio was located at 643 Broadway, northwest corner of Bleecker Street, before it was demolished and replaced by a Neo-Grec style tenement building in 1878. In a piece written in The World in 1891, Brady claimed that Lincoln had said that “Brady and the Cooper Institute made me President.” It’s hard to argue with that assertion given the high demand for this portrait following the historic speech; re-productions of the captivating photograph appeared in many papers, including Harper’s Weekly, showcasing Lincoln as a serious contender for the presidency during a particularly tumultuous time in the nation’s history. After his short time in that studio, Brady moved to his new location at 785 Broadway in the fall of 1860 and he remained here for the rest of his career. Lincoln, as well as other key figures of the era, sat for a number of portraits for Brady during his presidency.

Existing building at 771-785 Broadway, 2014 Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of extant historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

U-P Film Group and O-P Screening Room Cinema were located here. Founded in the late 1960s by Palestinian Egyptian immigrant Rafic Azzouny, whom Village Voice film critic J. Hoberman called “an exuberant fixture of the downtown film and video scene for over three decades,” they played a key role in the development of the Downtown underground and avant garde film and video scene. U-P was a filmmaking collective which allowed many more daring or not commercially viable artists to create their works, while O-P was a venue for showing these audacious or unconventional films.

“Christmas at the Other Side, Boston” by Nan Goldin, 1972 It was the first venue to show photographer Nan Goldin’s slideshows and played a significant role in developing the career of pioneering underground filmmaker, performance artist, and photographer Jack Smith. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

The photographer Aaron Siskind (December 4, 1903 – February 8, 1991) lived and had a studio here beginning in the 1930s, above the famed Corner Book Shop. He was closely associated with the abstract expressionist and New York School of writers, who were centered in this area in the post-World War II period, especially his close friends Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, and Franz Kline, with whom he also showed at the Charles Egan Gallery.

Aaron Siskind, 1950 A native of the Lower East Side, Siskind graduated from City College in 1926 and taught in New York’s public school system between 1926 and 1949. He first rose to prominence in the 1930s as a member of the socially-conscious New York Photo League, for which he created his celebrated photo series Harlem Document, “one of the most important visual records of Harlem during the Great Depression,” which contained many photos not published until 1981. Harlem Document was a moving series of portraits as well as scenes of street and home life in Harlem from 1932-1940. Part of a larger project initiated by the Photo League to examine urban neighborhoods, it was funded in part by the Federal Writers Project and included textual documentation of the community and its subjects as well. This was quickly followed by Siskind’s series “The Most Crowded Block in the World” which also focused on African American life and subjects in New York. These two projects collectively provide one of the most extensive and insightful documentations of African American life in New York and specifically in Harlem during this time. In 1936, Siskind founded the League’s Feature Group, which documented New York City, focusing especially on Harlem. Siskind’s other work for the League included projects “The Catholic Worker Movement” and “Dead End: The Bowery.”

Photo by Aaron Siskind By World War II Siskind left the League, which disbanded, and moved from a social realist to a more abstract style, wherein his work focused on the details of things, presented as flat surfaces creating a new image independent of the original subject. “For the first time in my life subject matter, as such, had ceased to be of primary importance,” Siskind explained. “Instead I found myself involved in the relationship of these objects, so much so that the pictures turned out to be deeply moving and personal experiences.” His elimination of pictorial space and his concentration on the arrangement of objects within the picture plane were seen by the Abstract Expressionists as a kindred approach to visual representation. Siskind also developed a close association with the artist Robert Rauschenberg, whose studio was located just a few blocks south in Lafayette Street. Siskind taught at Chicago's Institute of Design and the Illinois Institute of Technology as well as the Rhode Island School of Design, and worked and photographed around the world. Siskind was also a founding member of the Society for Photographic Education in 1963. According to the International Center of Photography, “Siskind's abstract photographs from the late 1940s and early 1950s were a major force in the development of avant-garde art in America. In rejecting the third dimension, this work belied the notion that photography was tied exclusively to representation. As such, Siskind's work served as an invaluable link between the American documentary movement of the 1930s and the more introspective photography that emerged in the 1950s and 60s.” Art critic Grace Glueck went even further, saying of Siskind’s work “\[it] crossed the line between photography and painting...\[t]hey influenced today’s recognition of photography as an art equal to that made with brush and canvas.” Siskind’s works are found in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, and the Smithsonian Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C., among others. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

Michael Gallagher opened the Art & Fashion Gallery, focusing on rare books, fashion, and photography, at 111 Fourth Avenue in September 2003. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

Photographer Harris Fogel’s “110 East 13th Street, New York City, 1986, from the 6 x 6 Portfolio” is held at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The image, taken from a low angle, shows the bare back of a figure whose face is obscured. A scholar, gallerist, curator, and journalist, Fogel has held a number of prominent positions in the arts and organized over 275 photography exhibitions. From 1997 until 2018, he acted as director and curator of the Sol Mednick Gallery and Gallery 1401, the latter of which he founded. His work is found in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the International Center of Photography, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

Sig Klein’s Fat Men’s Shop was opened by Sig Klein the late 1800s, and remained at 50-52 Third Avenue at least through the 1960s. A May 2, 1931 article in The New Yorker described Klein and the business: “when he started, bartenders and beergarden owners from the bad old Bowery made a good part of his customers … Now over six thousand fat men trade regularly here … from as far away as Germany, Ireland and Cuba.” Prominent artists, including photographers Berenice Abbott, Ben Shahn, and Tony Marciante captured images of the shop, which had become a cultural landmark by the 1930s. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

Before the Roosevelt Building was constructed in 1893, a row of three-story buildings stood on the northwest corner of Broadway and Thirteenth Street. No. 841 Broadway was home to Pach Brothers Firm, one of the oldest photography studios in the United States.

Three German brothers, Gustavus Pach (1848-1904), Gotthelf Pach (1852-1925), and Morris Pach (1837–1914) founded the Pach Brothers Firm in 1866. The studios originally opened on the Bowery, but moved north to 841 Broadway and later 935 Broadway in the late 19th century when this area became a center of the newly-emerging photography industry. The business remained in the family for generations until it closed its doors in the 1990s.

From its founding, the Pach Brothers served a wide variety of customers, creating a great diversity of products over their 130 years of business. Their archives are now held at the New-York Historical Society. . Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

Helen Levitt (August 31, 1913 – March 29, 2009), one of the most influential street photographers of the 20th century, lived at 4-6 East 12th Street for over 40 years. Nos. 4 and 6 East 12th Street are a pair of largely intact 4-story and basement ca. 1846 Greek Revival houses located just east of Fifth Avenue that have since been split into multi-unit housing.

New York City’s doorways, storefronts, and cascading fire escapes were the grand backdrop to Levitt’s photos. She rambled about the city’s streets with little more than the handheld camera and a wondrous, reverent eye. She immersed herself in her surroundings, cultivating deep respect and adoration for the working-class people and mischievous children that were both her subjects and her neighbors. Her depiction of street life blended the poetic and the political.

Born in 1913 in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, Helen Levitt became intrigued with the transitory chalk drawings that were part of the New York children’s street culture of the time while she was teaching art classes to children in the mid-1930s. She purchased a Leica camera (with a right-angle viewfinder) and began to photograph these chalk drawings, as well as the children who made them. In 1940, her works were included in the inaugural exhibition of The Museum of Modern Art’s photography department, where her 1939 image of children trick-or-treating received especially high praise.

Renowned figures such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans, and James Agee were among her cohort of admiring contemporaries and friends, but Levitt stood out from the crowd with her warm and discerning photographs. Depicting the urban whimsy of ordinary street life in the city, Levitt captured wondrous, seemingly impossible moments of the dance of life in the street and the unrestrained bonds of community.Levitt lived in New York City and remained active as a photographer for nearly 70 years. She has been called “the most celebrated and least known photographer of her time.”