East 100 Street

For two years in the 1960s, Bruce Davidson photographed one block in East Harlem. He went back day after day, standing on sidewalks, knocking on doors, asking permission to photograph a face, a child, a room, a family. Through his skill, his extraordinary vision, and his deep respect for his subjects, Davidson's portrait of the people of East 100th Street is a powerful statement of the dignity and humanity that is in all people.

Vince Aletti: "Davidson's strobe doesn't dispel the gloom or glamorize the ruin of the apartments, alleyways, storefronts, and rubble-strewn lots where people stopped to pose for him, but the rapport he established allows those people to surrender to the camera with their humanity intact."

Bruce Davidson: "Like the people who live on the block, I love and hate it and I keep going.