Archive

1945

“This is my brain child . . . handle care please” or “A Book is Born”

July 19, 2015
1945, Naked City

Since we are in the second day of the 70th year since the publication of Naked City…

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Naked City, pp. 11-12

“A Book is Born

One just doesn’t go up to strange men, women, children, elephants, or giraffes and say, “Look this way please. Laugh- cry show some emotion or go to sleep underneath a funeral canopy.” They would have called me crazy and called a cop who would have called the wagon with the guys in white and I would have wound up in the psychopathic ward at Bellevue Hospital in a strait jacket.
For the pictures in this book I was on the scene; sometimes drawn there by some power l can’t explain, and l caught the New Yorkers with their masks off. . . not afraid to Laugh, Cry, or make Love. What I felt I photographed, laughing and crying with them.
I have been told that my pictures should be in a book, that they were a great social document. As I keep to myself, belong to no group, like to be left alone with no axe to grind, I wouldn’t know. Then something happened. There was a sudden drop in Murders and Fires (my two best sellers, my bread and butter). I couldn’t understand that. With so many millions of people, it just wasn’t normal, but it did give me a chance to look over the pictures I had been accumulating. Put together, they seemed to form a pattern. I pasted the photographs up into a “dummy” book and left it with the publishers with a note “This is my brain child . . . handle care please.”
The people in these photographs are real. Some from the East Side and Harlem tenements, others are from Park Avenue. In most cases, they weren’t even aware they were being photographed and cared less. People like to be photographed and will always ask “What paper are you from, mister, and what day will they appear,” the jitterbugs and the Sinatra bobby-sock fans even want to know on what page it will appear. To me a photograph is a page from life, and that being the case, it must be real.”
Naked City, pp. 11-12

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“…these pictures of people sleeping on the fire escapes, and kids and little girls holding cats…”

July 18, 2015
1945, Naked City, PM

Perhaps today marks the 70th anniversary of the publication of Naked City. To commemorate this historic event… Starting with what might be the first “rave notice” in print:

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PM, July 18, 1945

LETTERS From the Editor
Rave Notice
“There’s a new book in the stores today by Weegee, who bills himself as “the famous” – and is.
It’s a book of pictures – pictures such as you’ve never seen before, except maybe in PM. It is called Naked City, published by Essential Books, sells for $4 – and is worth it.
I’ve been through my copy now three times, and every trip there’s something new.
The book is a collection of the better pictures Weegee has taken in the years he has spent as a freelance photographer, mostly of murders and fires, but sometimes of love. Many of them have appeared as news pictures in PM, and you’ll remember some of them – certainly the ones of Joe McWilliams, the Nazi lover, with the rear end of his horse, and Mrs. George Washington Kavanaugh with the late Lady Decies and their jewels at the opera.
It is unfair to use a single illustration as typical, but I’m using the one in the next column of the Bowery floozy’s gam because I like it, and because I like Weegee’s caption: Ladies keep heir money in their stockings…
Weegee is a rumpled, heavy-set, cigar-smoking man with a camera who lives with one ear at a police radio. He rather likes to pass himself off as a character. He is, but not exactly the same one.”
-John P. Lewis
PM, July 18, 1945, p. 19

Naked City by the numbers:
Inspired by the quote: “Many of them have appeared as news pictures in PM” and being naturally curious, we decided to investigate the publication history of the photos in Naked City.
Naked City: 246 pages with 247 photos
Photos published before their publication in Naked City:
78 photos were published in PM
6 significant variant photos were published in PM
4 photos were published in The New York Daily News
3 photos were published in Life
2 photos were published in The New York Post
1 photo was published in The New York Herald Tribune

The earliest photo that we could conclusively date in a publication is “Balcony Seats at a Murder,” published in the New York Post, on Nov. 17, 1939.
The latest photo that we could conclusively date in a publication is “Opening Night at the Opera,” published in PM, on December 3, 1944.

To be continued…

70 Years Ago Today… “Desserted”

February 16, 2015
1945, Daily News

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Daily News, February 16, 1945, p. 29 (By Fellig)

“DESERTED
Unable to proceed, owners of these cars abandoned them on West Side Highway, near 90th St. Mayor LaGuardia refused to permit use of water to clear streets. He said water crisis is worse than snow crisis.”

(Presumably this is one of the last fotos by Fellig to appear in the Daily News. By 1945 he receives credit… Typical “stark” photo made at night for a tabloid… A frozen dessert… The icing on the cake…)

Naked Naked City

November 13, 2014
1945, Naked City, PM

pm_1945_07_18_18-19c_copy-2
PM, July 18, 1945, p. 19
LETTERS
From the Editor
Rave Notice
“There’s a new book in the stores today by Weegee, who bills himself as “the famous” – and is.
It’s a book of pictures – pictures such as you’ve never seen before, except maybe in PM. It is called Naked City, published by Essential Books, sells for $4 – and is worth it.
I’ve been through my copy now three times, and every trip there’s something new.
The book is a collection of the better pictures Weegee has taken in the years he has spent as a freelance photographer, mostly of murders and fires, but sometimes of love. Many of them have appeared as news pictures in PM, and you’ll remember some of them – certainly the ones of Joe McWilliams, the Nazi lover, with the rear end of his horse, and Mrs. George Washington Kavanaugh with the late Lady Decies and their jewels at the opera.
It is unfair to use a single illustration as typical, but I’m using the one in the next column of the Bowery floozy’s gam because I like it, and because I like Weegee’s caption: Ladies keep heir money in their stockings…
Weegee is a rumpled, heavy-set, cigar-smoking man with a camera who lives with one ear at a police radio. He rather likes to pass himself off as a character. He is, but not exactly the same one.”
-John P. Lewis

That’s a great little review or notice. Now we know Naked City was published on July 18, 1945, sold for $4…
Inspired by the quote: “Many of them have appeared as news pictures in PM” and being curious, we decided to investigate the prepublication history of the photos in Naked City.
Naked City: 246 pages with 247 photos

Before publication in Naked City:
78 photos were published in PM
6 significant variant photos were published in PM
4 photos were published in The New York Daily News
3 photos were published in Life
2 photos were published in The New York Post
1 photo was published in The New York Herald Tribune

The earliest photo that we could conclusively date in a publication is “Balcony Seats at a Murder,” published in the New York Post, on Nov. 17, 1939.
The latest photo that we could conclusively date in a publication is “Opening Night at the Opera,” published in PM, on December 3, 1944.

(to be continued…)

Naked City…

November 2, 2014
1945, book, Naked City

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“Naked City” (screen shot from the Internet)

“To You
The People of New York
&
Mark Sherwin
my favorite picture
Editor who always
forgets to put this
famous TRADE MARK
‘Credit Photo by Weegee The Famous’
under my pictures,
& thereby(?) tortures my soul!
Weegee July 1945”

“Bogart and Bacall in Bucolic Bridal”

August 13, 2014
1945, PM

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PM, May 22, 1945

“It Happened in the U.S.A.
Bogart and Bacall in Bucolic Bridal”
“Bromfield Adds Snapdragons and Rustic Setting
At Mansfield, O., Humphrey Bogart, the movie tough guy, and Lauren Bacall, known as The Look, were married at the home of Louis Bromfield, the farmer, in as quiet a ceremony as possible considering that there were Hollywood press agents all over the place. Arriving from Chicago with Miss Bacall’s mother, the couple got their license from Probate Judge S. H. Cramer, who pointed out that Ohio law required that at least one party to an Ohio marriage be an Ohio resident. This hurdle was crossed when Miss Bacall swore that she was a resident of Lucas, O., after which the party adjourned to the Bromfield manse, where Bogart grabbed a few Martinis to soothe his nerves. Municipal Judge H. H. Shettler performed the ceremony in a rustic setting in the entrance hall, decked with snapdragons and shrubs. He worked from a loose-leaf notebook, explaining that he had typed out an improvised service for this special occasion, “combining a little of everything.” Miss Bacall, born Betty Joan Perske in the Bronx, wore what was described as a simple doeskin beige dress adorned with a big orchid; Bogart, a plain gray suit and a dark maroon necktie.”

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69 Years Ago Today… “One Year Ago… The Stroke That Doomed Germany”

June 6, 2014
1945

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PM Daily, June 6, 1945
“On June 6, 1944, the Yanks poured ashore from landing barges onto the coast of Normandy, to buy with blood a crushing victory over the Nazis.”
“One American lies face down in a bloody puddle. He died on the first day; he never saw the time of triumph his sacrifice helped to win… And you can arrange an appointment to donate blood by calling one of these Red Cross centers…“