Getty Museum
Boy on Roof, Pitt Street, New York
Creator
Walter RosenblumAmerican Photographer · 1919–2006
All works by this person →Walter Rosenblum has spent over sixty years making photographs that celebrate the intimacies of family, the innocence and optimism of youth, and the dignity of poor people. Early in his career, he was influenced by the work of Paul Strand and Lewis Hine, both of whom were mentors of the Photo League in New York. At the age of nineteen, Rosenblum began a longtime association with this organization,
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- 1950
- Medium
- Gelatin silver print
- Culture
- American
- Department
- Photographs
- Institution
- Getty Museum
Walter Rosenblum captured this image of a vulnerable young boy on a rooftop in New York's Lower East Side. Wedged into a corner of zigzagging walls and dwarfed by the city around him, the boy appears to be trapped. Behind him, the Manhattan Bridge, which connects Manhattan to Brooklyn, hints at the world beyond the big city. Known for its tenement housing, the Lower East Side has been home to lower- and middle-class people, particularly immigrants, since the 1900s. Its residents often found relief from crowded apartments and chaotic streets by climbing to their rooftops. Rosenblum made this photograph as part of a second series of images on Pitt Street, where he grew up. Both series' of images celebrate the common dignity of people found in a closely-knit neighborhood.
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