Saul Leiter: “I started out as a fashion photographer. One cannot say that I was successful but there was enough work to keep me busy. I collaborated with Harper’s Bazaar and other magazines. I had work and I made a living. At the same time, I took my own photographs.

“I spent a great deal of my life being ignored. I was always very happy that way. Being ignored is a great privilege. That is how I think I learnt to see what others do not see and to react to situations differently. I simply looked at the world, not really prepared for anything.”

A Leiter gallery over at On-Line Browsing.

Beautiful gallery of NYC subway photographs over at Magnum Photos.

Yesterday evening in New York, in three pictures:

102nd Street between Broadway and West End.

231st Street and Broadway.

10 Bus in the Bronx.

Chris Lord; Photomontage, 2012, Assemblage / Collage “Walls and Towers.”

Man, love them water towers.

Last night I went to a live model class at the Society of Illustrators on the east side. It’s a neat place and the session was attended by old-timers and kids alike–cartoonists, book illustrators, comic book artists, professionals and amateurs. It’s been more than a dozen years since I’ve been to such a class but I got the itch recently when talking to some old painter friends of mine. I figured what the hell, why not? It’s been too long.

The night before the class, I couldn’t sleep I was so excited.

It took an hour or so or flailing around, not really knowing what to do, where to start or continue, before I settled in and got a little bit of the old feeling back. Mostly though, it wasn’t about any finished product as much as it was about paying attention and really looking. After the second hour my hand was cramping and my eyes hurt. But I felt good. I think I’ll go again.

From the most-necessary tumblr site, Humans of New York, here’s something to which we can all aspire.

A New York Minute from Jonathan Safran Foer:

A COUPLE of weeks ago, I saw a stranger crying in public. I was in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene neighborhood, waiting to meet a friend for breakfast. I arrived at the restaurant a few minutes early and was sitting on the bench outside, scrolling through my contact list. A girl, maybe 15 years old, was sitting on the bench opposite me, crying into her phone. I heard her say, “I know, I know, I know” over and over.

What did she know? Had she done something wrong? Was she being comforted? And then she said, “Mama, I know,” and the tears came harder.

What was her mother telling her? Never to stay out all night again? That everybody fails? Is it possible that no one was on the other end of the call, and that the girl was merely rehearsing a difficult conversation?

“Mama, I know,” she said, and hung up, placing her phone on her lap.

I was faced with a choice: I could interject myself into her life, or I could respect the boundaries between us. Intervening might make her feel worse, or be inappropriate. But then, it might ease her pain, or be helpful in some straightforward logistical way. An affluent neighborhood at the beginning of the day is not the same as a dangerous one as night is falling. And I was me, and not someone else. There was a lot of human computing to be done.

[Painting by cjeremyprice]

Questions: Taken literally, what’s incorrect in the final scene of Annie Hall (shot from inside O’Neal’s Balloon)?

After that it got pretty late, and, we both had to go, but it was great seeing Annie again. I realized what a terrific person she was and how much fun it was just knowing her, and I thought of that old joke. You know, this guy goes to his psychiatrist and says, “Doc, my brother’s crazy. He thinks he’s a chicken.” And the doctor says, “Well why don’t you turn him in?” The guy says, “I would, but I need the eggs.” Well, I guess that’s pretty much now how I feel about relationships– you know, they’re totally irrational and crazy and absurd, but, I guess we keep going through it because most of us need the eggs.

Answer: It wasn’t late at all. If you notice the light, it’s coming from the east, which means this scene was shot early in the morning.

Not that it makes any difference…unless you are an anal New Yorker.

“That’s a polite word for what you are.”

Here’s something to bookmark: The Bodegas of Manhattan.

[Photo Via: Inhabitat NYC]

Yesterday evening it poured in midtown.

Today is beautiful.

Here’s the fellas laying out pavement this morning in the Bronx.

From 1939…

Not too early in the season for this, cause it’s hot out there and when you schvitz time for spritz.

[Photo Credit: Thomas Hoepker/MAGNUM PHOTOS]

Hey Ma, what’s fuh dinner? Seen on the 1 train last night.  Too funny.

From Humans of New  York.

Over at Wired, Tim De Chant has a piece on how engineers are building a new railroad under NYC.

[Photo Credit: Dean Kaufman]

The Third Avenue El, via Easy Gig.

Oh, man, the St. Mark’s Playhouse. Cue: Memories.

Over at Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York check out this interview with East Village photographer, Ann Sanfedele.

Museumuseum gives us a huge treat:

Sixth Avenue between 43rd and 44th street

by Todd Webb (April 23, 1948)

A New York minute in pictures brought to you by the great Saul Leiter.

In the spring of 1996, my friend Mike took me to A-1, a record shop in the East Village. I looked through a couple of crates of records and then started a conversation with a blond-haired kid who was hanging out talking music. An hour later we were still talking.

Mike had been looking through the $2 dollar bins on the floor and he came up with two steals: Ice Cube’s Kill at Will ep and BDP’s By All Means Necessary.

Right there, I knew the difference between a dedicated beat digger and me. I liked the music but didn’t have the stamina to go through the entire store for a bargain.

That fall, the Yanks won the World Series and I went to Los Angeles for four months on a job. The next time I went to A-1 the blond-haired kid, Jared Boxx, was working there.

It wasn’t long before he left with two co-workers to open their own record store, The Sound Library. And when the partners there split up, Jared co-ran Big City Records.

Now, The Sound Library and Big City are history but A-1 is still around.

And wouldn’t you know it but my friend Mike works there. Seventeen years after he first brought me in I stopped by to say hello. Bags came along with me and took some pictures.

DJ’s aren’t buying vinyl like they used to. And now A-1 sells a lot of rock albums. Mike said they can’t keep records by Blondie, The Talking Heads of Led Zeppelin on the shelf. He blames the video game Guitar Hero.

It was great catching up, hearing some music, and seeing my old friend.