(images from auction site)
Sold for $599.99 (plus $8.00 for shipping)
in December 2018.
PM press photo from Culver… “PM-FILE” means it wasn’t published…
“F.H. La Guardia at fire 1/8/42
Pay if used (arrow to Weegee stamp)
before he… his check” written on verso
Extra! Weegee, pp. 202-203
Photo is in the extraordinary Extra! Weegee, with the caption: “Mayor Nipped By Jack Frost.” “…5-alarm fire at the municipally owned pier 83 on the Hudson River… his right cheek was frost bitten…”
Whitney Museum, 2019
[Arshile Gorky (1902-1948), The Artist and His Mother, 1926-c. 1936.] – from whitney.org
Weegee in the wild…
screenshot, whitney.org
(Small image file – 300 pixels wide, can’t see the back of the print, good to know that it’s a posthumous print, this may not be accurate: “for PM, a tabloid-style newspaper for which he did occasional freelance work.” – “occasional”?)
screenshot, whitney.org
PM, February 21, 1941, p. 21
New York Times, February 21, 1941
(Esposito Brothers)
(Images copied from auction website)
Copied from auction website: “Weegee, ‘Arrested For Bribing Basket Ball Players’, 1942, Original Press Print”
Sold for $60.00
(Photo of HR and HS was published in PM on January 31, 1945.)
“Original” is a funny word to describe a press print…
Two definitions of the word original, copied from google:
Original:
1. present or existing from the beginning; first or earliest.
2. created directly and personally by a particular artist; not a copy or imitation.
(This is an original blog post.)
The New York Sun, February 19, 1942
“Photo League Lists Two New Courses
The Photo League, 31 East 21st street has announced two new courses… Synchro-Flash will be taught by Weegee, Gjon Mili and Martin Harris…”
PM, December 26, 1940, p15
Weegee Covers Christmas in New York… In Pictures and Words…
By Weegee
Early Christmas Eve I received a phone call from Wesley Price, one of PM’s picture editors. Price told me he wanted a good holiday picture, something with plenty of OOMPH. Lots of Christmas spirit in it. in other words a masterpiece. Jokingly I replied you just couldn’t order a picture like that, like you would a box of cigars. It had to happen. However, I asked him if he had any suggestions. He suggested that I get the picture in for the first edition.
I left police headquarters in my car at 2:30 Christmas morning. I turned the two radios on. One the regular broadcast receiver, to get some holiday music to put me in the mood; and the other radio, a police short wave receiver to get the police signals so I would know what was going on.
The first police call I picked up was for West and Bank Sts. When I got there I found a car with a Jersey license, turned on its side, with a cop on top of it. Nobody seemed to be hurt. Soon a towing wagon arrived to take the car away. I made a shot of it and was on my way.
Then I picked up six fire alarm signals. They were all false. I didn’t think Santa did that.
Then I stopped at the All Night Mission at No. 8 Bowery. [Not the still extant Bowery Mission.] Every night in the year about 100 hopelessly beaten and homeless men sit on benches and sleep as best they can.
Except for a Christmas tree in front, everything was the same. The same despair and hopelessness. I tiptoed in at 4 in the morning, being careful not to disturb anyone. Everyone was asleep. The place was as usual playing to “Sitting up” only. The same electric sign was lit with the illuminated big letters, JESUS SEES, the only source of light in the place. I wondered if He approved…
On the way out, along a big stove near the door, I noticed a pair of stockings, turned inside out, hung to dry.
Next I picked up a police alarm for 102nd St. and Lexington Ave. When I got there I found a man had been stabbed to death and was lying on the corner. From the St. John’s Episcopal Church, on the opposite corner, came the sound of organ music and the singing of the Christmas worshipers. I made a shot of the scene and started back to police headquarters.
When I arrived at my home, in back of Police Headquarters, I found a package wrapped in fancy paper outside my door. It was a present from my Chinese laundry man, Willie Chu, of 95 Elizabeth St. It contained a pound of tea and a half pound of lichee nuts. I had been looking for the Christmas spirit all night long. And had found it, on my doorstep. Lichee NUTS to you, Santa Claus…
Weegee’s Christmas day journey (on a Google Map), might look like this.
A soon-to-be classic New York City Christmas story…
PM, December 26, 1940, p15
The New York Times, October 18, 1948
5500 New Yorkers Will Spend Christmas Like This… … Sleeping in Flophouses, Eating in City Dining Halls (PM Sketches by Willard Arnold)
[Palace Hotel, 315 Bowery… formerly, CBGBs, etc.]
There’s No Christmas Truce in Labor’s War with Ford… (Photo by Alan Fisher)
The Levines (Who Own This Building) Came From Podolsk to Orchard St. (Photos by ?)
They Have a 4-Room Apartment Full of Things They Admire… … But They Spend Nearly All Their Time at the Store (Photos by ?)
PM, December 24, 1940, pp. 16-21
[141 Orchard St., 2017]
