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Harlem, USA: Historic Photographs by Dawoud Bey
As a boy, Dawoud Bey felt like “every day was Saturday in Harlem.” The uptown Manhattan neighborhood “was a place of vibrant culture,” as the photographer would later note when he returned to capture it on film in the 1970s. “Even though the city of New York was in a state of financial crisis,” Bey observed residents “quietly living their lives…going to their churches, and otherwise comporting themselves with dignity, grace and a sense of cool.” Bey, named a MacArthur Fellow in 2017, assembled his striking portraiture from that period for his first solo show, Harlem, USA. Forty years after that exhibition premiered, the series remains a powerful testimonial of the beauty of a New York City neighborhood and its citizens. Click through the following images to get a glimpse of street-level Harlem history for yourself.
At a Revival Tent Meeting, 1977
A Man and Two Women after a Church Service, 1976
A Woman Waiting in the Doorway, 1976
Mr. Moore's Bar-B-Que, 125th Street, 1976
Woman with Hanging Overalls, 1978
A Man in a Bowler Hat, 1976
Harlem, NY, 1978
Deas McNeil, The Barber, 1976
McKinley the Shoemaker, Harlem, NY, 1975
Men from the 369th Regiment Marching Band, Harlem, NY, 1977
Man at Lenox and 125th Street, 1976
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