Weegee's Guide to New York

Weegee, [The Ham n Egg], 1953-54. © Weegee / International Center of Photography. Location: 1652 Broadway at West 51st Street, Northeast Corner.

Weegee, Simply Add Boiling Water, December 18, 1943. © Weegee / International Center of Photography. Location: 281 Water Street at Dover, Southeast Corner

Weegee, [Operators of race wire-service arrested at their headquarters in gambling raid], October 1, 1942. © Weegee / International Center of Photography. Location: 126 Liberty Street at Greenwich Street, Southwest Corner.

Weegee, [Caffé Bella Napoli], July 1944. © Weegee / International Center of Photography. Location: 151 Mulberry Street between Hester and Grand, West Side of Block.

Weegee, [Under the Third Avenue Elevated], 1938. © Weegee / International Center of Photography. Location: The Bowery between Broome and Grand Streets.

Weegee, Time Is Short, 1942. © Weegee / International Center of Photography. Location: 375 Broome Street between Mott and Mulberry, South Side of Block

Weegee, [Car and truck collision], ca. 1947. © Weegee / International Center of Photography. Location: Stuyvesant Avenue and Hart Street.

Weegee, [Victory], 1945. © Weegee / International Center of Photography. Location: 63 Mott Street between Bayard and Canal.

Weegee, Water Main Burst Uproots Madison Ave. New York, May 25, 1945. © Weegee / International Center of Photography. Location: Madison Avenue between 77th and 78th Streets, East Side of Block.

Weegee, [Act of Love, Astor Theatre], 1954. © Weegee / International Center of Photography. Location: Times Square, Looking North of Broadway and West 45th Street, Northeast Corner.

Though the New York of the 1930s and 1940s is long gone, the memories will live forever in the photographs taken by Arthur Fellig, better known by his pseudonym, Weegee. A new book from The International Center of Photography and Prestel retraces Weegee’s steps through the city, his photographs leading readers on a tour of eleven New York neighborhoods. Weegee developed his signature black-and-white style by working as a press photographer, and over the years he published a number of books (Naked Hollywood, Weegee’s People), and collaborated on films with notable directors like Stanley Kubrick.

“During his storied career as the quintessential New York photojournalist, Weegee explored the city’s least glamorous pockets, depicting brutal crimes, horrific accidents, tenement dwellers, street vendors, and mischievous kids,” the International Center of Photography, said in a statement about The Weegee Guide to New York: Roaming the City with Its Greatest Tabloid Photographer (ICP/Prestel, 2014). “And although his perspective was often dark and cynical, he was also tremendously sentimental about his subjects’ hard lives.”

The guide includes 275 of Weegee’s black-and-white photographs, some previously unpublished, as well as period neighborhood maps. Keep this in mind, New Yorkers, for your summer visitors. It’s a unique alternative to the usual tours of the Empire State Building and Rockefeller Center.

Related: Hawre Khalid’s Document of Daily Life in His War-Torn Hometown of Kirkuk (for PDN Subscribers only; login required); End Frame: Albert Watson’s Strong Influences (for PDN Subscribers only; login required)