Lower East Side, New York City, 3rd Avenue 1947

Godfrey Frankel shot this gelatin silver print of the Lower East Side, New York, sometime in the mid-20th century. It's this urban geometry that captures me: the hard dark steel of the elevated train line slashing across a vista of buildings and the Lucky Open Kitchen restaurant. The scene is shrouded in darkness, the light obscured by the tracks above, and the eye is drawn into the shadows of the composition. I can imagine Frankel wandering the streets, looking for such views, how he raised his camera to capture this fleeting moment of urban life. He must have wanted to capture the poetry of the ordinary. It is interesting to consider Frankel's aesthetic sensibility in conversation with other street photographers, from Eugène Atget to Helen Levitt. They all share the same wish to capture the ephemeral moments and the vernacular architecture of cities.