Weegee: Murder Was His Business [HISTORY]
This image has been archived or removed.
Facing the back of the old Police Headquarters
Picture Depression-era New York. Wait, you don’t have to because he took the pictures for you – Weegee a.k.a Usher Fellig. The man who earned his name based on an uncanny, clairvoyant-like ability to beat police to crime scenes…as if he knew…Ouija. He did, however, live across from the old police headquarters and owned a police scanner in his car and by his bed. So…
Weegee came to New York City from Austria in 1910 at the age of 11. By 1913, he left school and began work at Ducket & Adler photography (below, 60 Grand Street, once the Wintergarden Theatre). He continued on to the New York Times, Acme Newspapers and by 1935, Weegee was freelance. He stalked the city looking for murder scenes, thereby coining the phrase and making it his mantra, “Murder is my Business.”
This image has been archived or removed.
Courtesy of Walter Grutchfield
New York Times, June 9, 2006:
“Whadda you kidding? It’s a zoo out there. Two deli stickups at 12 on the dot; one of the perps getting plugged. I got the picture. Roulette joint bust on East 68th. Society types. You shoulda seen the penguins run. Three a.m.: Brooklyn. Car crash. Kids. Bad.”
“Four a.m., bars close. Guys asleep in Bowery doorways. But just before dawn is the worst: despair city. The jumpers start, out the windows, off the roof. I can’t even look. So that’s the night, New York. Ain’t it grand? What a life.”
This image has been archived or removed.
Murdered Husband with Wife in Tenement
This image has been archived or removed.
Dominick Didato dead on Elizabeth Street
New York’s Photo League held an exhibition of his work in 1941, and the Museum of Modern Art began collecting his work and exhibited it in 1943. Weegee published his photographs in several books, including Naked City (1945), Weegee’s People (1946), and Naked Hollywood (1953).
His widow later donated all of his work to the International Center for Photography which just opened at 250 Bowery on the Lower East Side.
This image has been archived or removed.
An installation view of Weegee Murder Is My Business
In a 2006 article entitled “Unknown Weegee, on Photographer Who Made The Night Noir,” New York Times reporter Holland Cotter described his technique.
‘He prowled the streets in a car equipped with a police radio, a typewriter, developing equipment, a supply of cigars and a change of underwear,’ Mr Cotter wrote, dubbing Weegee a ‘one-man photo factory’.
‘He drove to a crime site; took pictures; developed the film, using the trunk as a darkroom; and delivered the prints.’
This image has been archived or removed.
This image has been archived or removed.
His studio at 5 Centre Market Place:
This image has been archived or removed.
Weegee’s studio
This image has been archived or removed.
Weegee’s studio
When he wasn’t immersed fully in the macabre, Weegee had another side to him. The Lower East Side, to be exact:
This image has been archived or removed.
This image has been archived or removed.
By 1947, the gruesome murder and gore had taken its toil. Weegee took off for the Left Coast to become a paparazzo of sorts. He developed an affinity for distortion, his subjects running the gamut from the Queen to Doris Day:
This image has been archived or removed.
Queen Elizabeth
For more on those, go here.
Finally, we come to Weegee’s most “famous” photograph, “The Critic” (1943) and it was staged. Weegee asked his assistant, Louie Liotta, to bring a Bowery bar patron to the season’s opening of the Metropolitan Opera. After getting the woman drunk, they positioned her near the red carpet resulting in this:
This image has been archived or removed.
Below are more of his works including that from his art show. Enjoy and remember, the streets are watching…
This gallery has been removed.
As always, Ah, New York. My stunning and gritty, sparkling and filthy, tremendous, transcendent metropolis – you were forged by the keepers of secrets and those secrets I plan to find and reveal, one brick at a time.
Recent Stories
At Belse, the New Vegan Brewery on the Bowery
Belse, the Texas-based vegan brewery and restaurant, is now in business on the Bowery. The Lone Star State transplant – officially, Belse Plant Cuisine – takes 11,000 square-feet at 265-267 Bowery, in what was previously the fleeting home of the Paulaner Brauhaus brewery. The renovated space features three sections – a restaurant, bar, and Garden […]
East Village Artist M. Henry Jones, Contemporary of Keith Haring, Dies
M. Henry Jones, a member of the East Village arts scene for over forty years, died last week (either June 16 or 17) at the age of 65. We’re told, though unconfirmed, the cause of death was a form of cancer. Jones was a neighborhood fixture for decades, in part, because of his storefront studio […]
Under the Floorboards at Long-Vacant East Houston Lot
Bereft of substantial activity in nearly two decades, the long-vacant parcel at 49 East Houston Street is in deterioration overdrive. An eagle-eyed tipster notes that the floorboards atop the existing foundation are now busted. Creating a pseudo entryway into the cellar level. Before its demise fourteen years ago, 49 East Houston had been a one-story […]
Developer Begins Demolition of Rutgers Street Playground for Temporary Parking Lot
Demolition work began this week on a Lower East Side park that is a focal point in the tension between the community and developers on the waterfront. The backhoes are out and job now underway at Rutgers Park, the small public space beside the Lands End II residential development. Removal of the playground began yesterday, including […]
The 3 Lower East Side Walk-ups that Sold for $35M
Earlier this month, we reported that SMA Equities, the Long Island real estate firm with controversial history on the Lower East Side, sold a portfolio of its area properties. SMA unloaded three tenement walk-ups to Daniel Fishman of GAIA Real Estate – 102 Norfolk Street, 177 Ludlow Street, and 99 Allen Street – for an […]
