Angelo Rizzuto's New York: "In little old New York, by Anthony Angel."

by Angelo Rizzuto

Paperback

Published January 1, 1972

Reviews

[Kathy Piselli]

When Rizzuto died in 1967, he left most of his work to the Library of Congress, providing the positive prints and funding for LC to use to publish as a book. LC did, and the result had limited distribution to Federal Depository Libraries, which received it in August 1972 (possibly also sold through the U.S. Government Printing Office). The paper is cheap and the book cheaply bound, and only minimal care was taken with layout. Yet somehow the grandeur of the photographs shines through. There are newsstands of the past - loaded with titles that either don't exist any more, or that are online only now. People sit on stoops and subways, no uber limos clog the streets and parking lanes, bike lanes have not been invented yet. A boy crouching over a grate wears shoes with leather soles nailed to the shoe, not glued molded plastic. Men's belts fasten well above the waist. Bygone store signs live again. The pre-Clean Air Act smog that bequeathed me lifelong asthma is evident. Grand Central has not been renovated yet and spooky light filters into the dim interior from its mighty windows. Street pretzels are heaped up outdoors without benefit of a hygienic and enclosed, city-inspected street cart. It's a jumble of quotidian scenes, so familiar.