Monday, October 26, 2009

Manhattan Street Corners

Between March and November 2006, Richard Howe photographed every street corner in Manhattan - roughly 11,000 of them - from all four sides. The images are excellent, all closely cropped to the street level of each intersection, avoiding the standard "skyscraper view" of Manhattan and focusing instead on the people who bring each corner to vibrant life.

As Howe says in his introduction to the project,

Each of Manhattan’s street corners is a life-world of its own, representing the common experience of the daily lives that cross it; taken together, they represent the collective experience of the island’s streets and sidewalks, the larger life-world of Manhattan’s greatest public commons.

You can view all of the photos by neighborhood on the project's extensive website, though to get a real feel for the project I recommend having a look at the 101 Street Corners slideshow.

Individual prints from the collection are now available directly from Howe, and four 12" x 36" prints were acquired by the Library of Congress for its permanent collection.

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