Railway Historical

San Gennaro Feast

I took these while studying photography at Pratt Institute. I was into a blur/flash technique at the time that gives both sharpness and movement; these are film (of course) as it's the fall of 1982.

Four images by Richard Koenig; the now vintage prints were made on fiber-based, warm-toned paper.

City as Metaphor

Midtown Manhattan as seen from The Lake, Central Park, 1981 and 2021. The iconic AT&T Building is under construction in the first image; one may also notice the Citicorp Tower and Essex House.

Two images by Richard Koenig; go here for more on the project.

City as Metaphor

Lower Manhattan as seen from the Promenade in Brooklyn Heights, taken 1988 and 2021. Images by Richard Koenig; for more of this project please go here.

City as Metaphor

Park Avenue and 59th Street, New York, taken 1982 and 2022. Images by Richard Koenig; for more of this project please go here.

City as Metaphor

In this view of Times Square, we are looking east along 46th Street across Seventh Avenue and Broadway, taken 1981 and 2021.

Images by Richard Koenig; for more of this project please go here.

City as Metaphor

A Flushing-bound Seven Train is seen here at Roosevelt Avenue and 74th Street, Queens. Manhattan (ESB, Citicorp Tower) can be seen in the background.

Images by Richard Koenig in 1982 and 2022; for more of this project please go here.

City as Metaphor

Manhattan as seen from Roosevelt Island, 1981 and 2021. We're standing under the 59th Street, or Queensboro Bridge (now named for Mayor Ed Koch), looking over the East River toward Manhattan. The tramway is also here of course, though one can also get to the island via subway. Images by Richard Koenig; for more of this project please go here.

City as Metaphor

Midtown Manhattan as seen from The Lake, Central Park, 1981 and 2021. The iconic AT&T Building is under construction in the first image; one may also notice the Citicorp Tower and Essex House.

Images by Richard Koenig; for more of this project please go here.

In the Airshaft

One image by Richard Koenig; taken in New York in 1994.

City as Metaphor

Lower Manhattan as seen from the Brooklyn Promenade, 1981 and 2021

Images by Richard Koenig; for more of this project please go here.

City as Metaphor

With this project I revisit locales in New York City (primarily Brooklyn), where I made photographs several decades ago. A contemporary, high-resolution image is then made, framed to mimic the prior photograph. The updated view is then combined with the vintage analog work to form a straightforward diptych à la Mark Klett’s wonderful Rephotographic Survey Project of the late seventies. The goal of this undertaking is to allow the viewer to study how visible things may have changed over a relatively long period of time—the most notable being, perhaps, an explosion of trees and foliage. But while the image-duos describe this and other changes based on physical appearances, it is hoped that a reflection of a deeper sort may be elicited. One may ponder what has transpired generally since the vintage views were made—the nature of the photography exhibited here is a receipt for a far-reaching digital revolution still unfolding. Beyond image and information technology, though, lurk other truly impactful events, some of which can be discerned from the images, while others cannot. The circumstance for having created the vintage images (while the author was studying photography at Pratt Institute in the early eighties) is arbitrary, but not insignificant. While not as dramatic as the shift in social, political, and cultural mores that occurred in the late sixties, the author, like many others, feels 1980 marks the beginning of a shift toward a new gilded age in the United States. Citing the oft-stated fable of frogs slowly being cooked alive, we tend not to notice incremental change, even when dangerous or possibly fatal in nature. It is hoped that the simple tactic of using time-comparison photographs will work to jar the viewer.

One can go here to see the entire project.

Richard Koenig

City as Metaphor: A Re-Photography Project Spanning Forty Years

Midtown, as seen from The Lake, Central Park

Images by Richard Koenig, all rights reserved.

Manhattan Bridge: 2004

Here are a few views from the Manhattan Bridge—made eighteen years ago (right at this time of year: spring break).

The first image shows the Brooklyn Bridge with lower Manhattan behind. One will instantly note the lack of any 100-floor building(s) in the shot—meaning the WTC, old nor new. Something I do enjoy about this shot though: the wonderful Woolworth Building, toward the right side of the image. While visible here, it’s been obscured by all kinds of new construction since.

The second image shows one of the towers of the Manhattan Bridge. The walkway across the bridge was rather new at this time I believe, as it was not present (or at least fenced off and out-of-service) when I lived in Brooklyn back in the 1980s.

And the final shot shows the Lower East Side with the Empire State Building in the distance. The remarkable thing in this shot is how singular this famous building appears. The ESB always had such a strong presence because it stood off by itself between the clusters of buildings found in lower Manhattan and Midtown. Now: not so much.

Three images by Richard Koenig; taken at the end of March, 2004.

Aboard the Staten Island Ferry

Here are three images made from the Staten Island Ferry—looking toward the tip of southern Manhattan. City Pier One is visible in color images, adjacent to the Battery.

I have a feeling the images are out of order—with the black and white taken on my way to SI, while the color was taken upon my return.

Three images by Richard Koenig; taken in the summer of 1983.

On the West Side

I have here three views taken along the Hudson River from the mid-1990s. The first image, looking down the Hudson River toward the upper-harbor, could have been made around Pier 32 or just south of that. Towers One and Two of the World Trade Center are prominent in the left-hand side of the image of course. The Statue of Liberty as well as Ellis Island can be made out in the distance.

In the second image, Pier 32 foregrounds the ventilation building for the Holland Tunnel. (The pilings from Pier 32, sans deck, are still evident at this location today.) In the final image we see the south side of a building (that closely resembles its current state), now part of the sprawling athletic complex at Pier 40.

Three images by Richard Koenig; taken in March of 1995.

From the Battery

Here are a couple of shots, taken in sequence, at the Battery in lower Manhattan. One can see the end of Pier A in the first image along with construction happening in Jersey City in the distance. Toward the left-hand side of that picture one can see the Central Railroad of New Jersey Terminal. In the second photograph one will notice, out in the bay, Ellis Island along with the Statue of Liberty.

Two images by Richard Koenig; taken in October of 1987.

From the West Side

Here are a couple of shots I ran across recently—one looking northeastward toward the upper twenties and the ESB while the other looks downtown toward WTC and where the Hudson River hits upper bay. Two images by Richard Koenig; taken in March of 1985.

[I think I locked down the locale of these two shots—taken from a building that sits at the corner of West and Bethune Streets.]