CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 3/28/2017

Philip Trager: New York in the 1970s

Hard to believe this was Times Square. Reproduced from Philip Trager: New York in the 1970s, this photograph was taken from 7th Avenue between West 46th and 47th Streets, back when the Follies Burlesque theater was still in business, Canon was selling 35mm film canisters like hotcakes, and The Wiz was racking up Tony Awards on Broadway. In his essay, Stephen C. Pinson recalls the relatively new TKTS pavilion in this photo, "its orbit populated with drug dealers and pimps…. In the summer of 1977, after Phil begins his project in earnest, a citywide blackout results in widespread looting, arson and more than 3,500 arrests. The city still reels from the Son of Sam murders. This is New York in the 1970s, and Phil and [his wife] Ina are on its streets."