“Only in New York, kids, only in New York,” Cindy Adams famous wrote in her New York Post gossip column when telling a story that could happen nowhere else on earth. There are some things that simply can’t, won’t, and don’t happen anywhere but the city that never sleeps—dating all the way back to its very settlement when Dutch colonial Director-General Peter Minuit executed the city’s first real estate scam in 1624, swindling the Canarsie peoples into “selling” the island of Manhattan for 60 guilders ($900 in 2018).
.
It takes a certain kind of person to live in New York—an unstoppable, indomitable force that refuses to quit. The new exhibition Collecting New York’s Stories: From Stuyvesant to Sid Vicious celebrates the famous, the infamous, and the anonymous alike, the diehard locals who have called this town home for better and for worse. Here, we bring together photographers Janette Beckman, Joe Conzo, and Martha Cooper, who documented the graffiti, hip hop, and Latin music scenes during the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s, to offer their take on the city long before gentrification.
.
Read the Full Story at Document Journal
.
