By Paul Goldfinger, photography editor @Blogfinger
Walker Evans (1903-1975) was one of America’s finest photographers. He usually worked with a large view camera (the kind that stood on a tripod while the photographer put his head under a black cloth.) He is best known for his work during the Great Depression when he was part of a famous team from the FSA—Farm Security Administration, that documented the harsh conditions in the “dust bowl” in hard-hit states like Oklahoma. But he also accumulated a large body of work in New York City. This photo is from 1928 at Coney Island.
It is from a book called New York, New York—The City in Art and Literature, published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2000. In this instance the literature was that of lyrics to a song by the great Lorenz Hart. But at Blogfinger, we add another dimension—the actual song–“Manhattan” by Rodgers and Hart:
“We’ll go to Coney and eat baloney on a roll,
In Central Park we’ll stroll, where our first kiss we stole,
Soul to soul.” (Lorenz Hart)
BOBBY SHORT–a consummate New Yorker.