Edwin Denby: The Street

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Elevated structure and buildings, Lower Manhattan: photo by Arthur Rothstein, December 1941

The street is where people meet according to law
Organize their natures to twenty-four hours
Say what to eat, take advantage of what they saw
And continue exercising daily powers.

Take one of these buildings, when standing awhile
The architect's headaches have been written right off
Just as a father's headaches amount to a smile
Like a cipher, when he gets a client to laugh.

So a million people are a public secret
(As night is a quieter portion of the day)
These are their private lives tearing down the street
Stepping past mouldings and past 'Special Today.'

Running they see each other without looking,
Love has not stopped, has not started by fucking.

Apartment house, Harlem: photo by Gordon Parks, May 1943

Children playing on East 63rd Street, New York, New York: photo by Sheldon Dick, 1938

Forty-ninth Street near Sixth Avenue, New York, New York: photo by Arthur Rothstein, December 1937

A Harlem street scene, New York, New York: photo by Gordon Parks, May/June 1943

Children playing in the street, 63rd Street, between First and Third Avenues, New York, New York: photo by Walker Evans, Summer 1938

Street hawker selling Consumer's Bureau Guide, 42nd Street and Madison Avenue, New York City: photo by Dorothea Lange, July 1939

Children playing in the street, 63rd Street, between First and Third Avenues, New York, New York: photo by Walker Evans, Summer 1938

House fronts, 61st Street, between First and Third Avenues, New York, New York: photo by Walker Evans, Summer 1938

A woman and her dog in the Harlem section, New York, New York: photo by Gordon Parks, May 1943

A street cleaner on Washington Street, New York, New York: photo by John Vachon, March 1943

A group of boys on East 62nd (or 63rd) Street, New York, New York: photo by Sheldon Dick, 1938

A Bowery hotel about midnight, New York, New York: photo by Marjorie Collins, September 1942

Bum who claimed to be a Scotch comedian, at Third Avenue and 14th Street, New York, New York: photo by Marjorie Collins, September 1942

A bum on the Bowery at 7th Street, New York, New York: photo by Marjorie Collins, September 1942

Edwin Denby: "The street is where people meet according to law...": from In Public, In Private, 1948

All photos from Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress