Weegee, PM, November 17, 1941
(Interestingly Weegee had another and perhaps equally unknown photo published in PM, on November 17, 1941… “Lucky Phil Falco leaped just before his car took this dive off the Willis Avenue Bridge. He swerved to avoid another car.
PM Photo by Weegee“)
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…)
PM, November 12, 1943
Giving Their Blood For Buddies Abroad
“Three hundred men at Fort Tilden, in the Rockaways, marked Armistice Day by giving blood to a Queens Red Cross mobile unit…”
“PM’s photographer liked the whole idea. He’s shown giving a pint after turning his camera over to a soldier.”
Photos by Irving Haberman [and unidentified photographer], PM
PM, November 10, 1946
“These pictures are from Weegee’s People (Duell, Sloan and Pearce, $4), which will be published on November 11. Weegee says of his new book: ‘Unlike my previous book, Naked City, this is New York in a happier and gayer mood. I went looking for beauty and found it. Here’s my formula – dealing as I do with human beings, and I find them wonderful – I leave them alone and let them be themselves – holding hands with love-light in their eyes – sleeping – or merely walking down the street. The trick is to be where people are.’ Weegee’s next venture will be movie-making.”
(That’s a significant quote… We know when Weegee’s People was published and perhaps the first printed reference to Weegee’s film making and Weegee’s “formula” for making his photographs and the location of a well-known photo is printed…)
“Weegee’s People at Manhattan Avenue and 107th St.” (That’s here on a Google map.) Summer Upper West Side, ca. 1945
PM, November 10, 1946
at
SAMMY’S
to celebrate with
WEEGEE
the publication of
WEEGEE’S PEOPLE
Monday evening
the eleventh of November
Number 267
ON THE BOWERY
(Bizarre photo, Weegee behind the wheel, camera riding shotgun…)
PM, November 10, 1943
“Del Carroll, blonde night-club photographer…”
(Ad Reinhardt!)
PM, November 5, 1946
“Photographer Todd Webb discovered New York when, as a Navy man, he spent leaves here. After the war he came to live and photograph the city. The result was his exhibit “I See a City” at the Museum of the City of New York.
Photo by Yolla Niclas
“Church – Webb did not focus on the city’s cathedrals but on this 125th St. temple.”
“Doorway – This simple, genre shot is typical of the way Todd Webb sees our city.”
PM, November 5, 1943
(Ad Reinhardt and Robert Capa)
“Nie Work…”
“Neapolitan Boys Fight the Nazis”
PM, November 4, 1943
(Ad Reinhardt)
PM, November 3, 1946
Ad Reinhardt, Eddie Condon and Mezz Mezzrow, Eugene O’Neill, and June Havoc…
WEEGEEWEEGEEWEEGEE 