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Harlem
Street Portraits
by Harvey Stein
Foreword by Herb Boyd
Afterword by Miss Rosen
Schiffer Publishing
Hardcover, $45.00
192 pages, Illustrated
ISBN: 978-0-7643-4487-9
Book
Review by Kam Williams
“With
a population of nearly half a million people, Harlem is America’s most
celebrated African-American neighborhood. Its rich past and historical
importance have made a unique contribution to our national popular culture…
Photographer
Harvey Stein documents the humanity and spirit of the people of Harlem in 166
beautiful photographs taken over 22 years…. The images are mostly close-up
portraits that reveal the friendliness and warmth of this city’s inhabitants...
What
may at first appear to be a casual encounter becomes a personal, intimate
record, a meaningful collaboration between photographer and subject. Stein’s
photographs capture and celebrate the Harlem
spirit.”
--
Excerpted from book jacket
Harlem has
been a predominantly African-American neighborhood since the dawn of the 20th
Century, when the mass migration by descendants of slaves from the rural South flooded
many a metropolis above the Mason-Dixon Line. By
the Twenties, this section of Manhattan
had blossomed into an artistic mecca and home to many black intellectuals,
writers, painters, musicians and dancers.
Spanning
that decade, the Harlem Renaissance marked a period of explosive creativity aborted
only by the onset of the Great Depression. Nevertheless, in the wake of World
War II, the region was resurrected as a hub of cultural, religious and
commercial activity, and continued to play that pivotal role over the
intervening decades
Today,
however, Harlem is at risk of losing its
identity because of the influx of whites as a consequence of the gentrification
which has accompanied skyrocketing real estate prices. For this reason, Harvey
Stein’s Harlem Street Portraits couldn’t be more timely.
The book is basically a collection of striking,
black & white photographs which the talented shutterbug took of residents
between 1990 and 2012. His impromptu snapshots capture colorful subjects with a
tremendous range in terms of fashion tastes, personal interests and even emotions.
From a
Mason lodge member rocking a funky fez, to a flag-waving patriot, to a boy
hugging his basketball, to an aspiring ballerina in a tutu, to churchgoers
strutting in their Sunday best, this visual history of a rapidly-disappearing
demographic weaves a telling tapestry of a once-cohesive community.