This is a visual tour so saturated with realism you can smell the knishes neatly displayed in the window of the Yonah Schimmel Knish Bakery, a visual tour comprised of hundreds of images of unique 19th and 20th century retail graphics and neon signs still in use and inspiring us to purchase to this very day. But for how long? Are New York City's local merchants a dying breed or an enduring group of diehards hell bent on retaining the traditions of a glorious past? According to Jim and Karla Murray the influx of big box retailers and chain stores pose a serious threat to these humble institutions, and neighborhood modernization and the anonymity it brings are replacing the unique appearance and character of what were once incredibly colourful streets. Store Front: The Disappearing Face of New York is a visual guide to New York City's timeworn storefronts, a collection of powerful images that capture the neighborhood spirit, familiarity, comfort and warmth that these shops once embodied. Almost all of these businesses are a reflection of New York's early immigrant population, a wild mix of Irish, Germans, Jews, Italians, Poles, Eastern Europeans and later Hispanics and Chinese. The variety is immense from Manhattan's Yonah Schimmel Knish Bakery and Katz's Delicatessen to the Jackson Heights Florist in Queens, Court Street Pastry in Brooklyn, D. D'Auria and Sons Pork Store in the Bronx and the De Luca General Store on Staten Island. And as the Murray's stunning, large format photographs make patently clear, the face of New York is etched in their facades.
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From The New Yorker
New York’s storefronts constitute the city’s vernacular architecture, shaping the look and feel of the five boroughs no less than more celebrated elements of the skyline. These unfussy, elegant, and richly colored photographs of butcher shops, bakeries, fabric wholesalers, cuchifritos stands, stationery and sporting-goods stores, laundromats, groceries, and dive bars give connoisseurs of signage, folk typography, and ambient erosion much to pore over. Shops that opened in the nineteen-seventies now look as ancient as those dating back to the twenties. The tone is elegiac as much as it is celebratory; interviews with shop owners make it clear how close to extinction many of them stand, and the photographers report that nearly a third of these businesses have gone under in the time that it took to make the book.
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Review
From The New York Times Book Review (April 5, 2009): For those who think modernization is always a virtue, the demise of these relics may be a good thing. For me, it marks the end of an era of sign painting and storefront innocence. Which is why my eyes widened when I saw James T. Murray and Karla L. Murray s..... STORE FRONT: The Disappearing Face of New York..... The Murrays, authors of two books on graffiti art, Broken Windows and Burning New York, have been photographing storefronts for more than eight years, and in this book they employ large-scale horizontal pages (and a few gatefolds) as they track their odyssey from the Lower East Side to Harlem to the Bronx, from Brooklyn to Queens to Staten Island. If you're at all interested in the passing cityscape, this book is a documentary mother lode; if you're happy to see these joints disappear, it might at least kindle appreciation for them. The Murrays photographs, however, do not romanticize these not very picturesque locales. The images are bright and crisp, though most of what the authors photographed was dingy and covered with graffiti; quite a few fronts and signs were falling apart or grungy to begin with. Yet it is in this state of decay that the stores hold a curious fascination indeed, a raw beauty for anyone concerned with vernacular design. I was particularly taken with the Lower East Side remnants that are slowly being squeezed out by hip restaurants and shops. Zelig Blumenthal's religious articles store, on Essex Street, appears not to have changed since my grandparents lived nearby. The Hebrew lettering on the window is as clean as it was back then. Meanwhile, at Rabbi M. Eisenbach's shop, the painted signs seem to be fading. Beny's Authorized Sales and Service, which sells fine jewelry, electric shavers, lighters, pens, is not just a throwback; it also exhibits a totally alien aesthetic compared with that of most stores today. Store Front is not mired in nostalgia. Take the photograph of the (now closed ) Jade Mountain Restaurant, on Second Avenue near 12th Street, where I ate cheap Chinese food as a teenager. It is not a storefront I get misty-eyed seeing again; even the so-called chop-suey-style sign lettering does not make me long for what's lost. But it's part of a larger mosaic that was (and is) New York s retail consumer culture. The book is also a study of urban migration, featuring Jewish delis and Italian latticini freschi stores downtown, Hispanic bodegas and Irish bars uptown, and a white-bread Howard Johnson's in Midtown (now gone). There are also photos of single blocks, with various contrasting storefronts tightly packed next to one another, that resemble a third-world market. Downtown is much more alluring than uptown but maybe that's because I was raised downtown. --Steven Heller for The New York Times. --The New York Times Book Review --New York Times
From Publishers Weekly (March 7, 2011): Anyone who loves the compact, diverse small businesses that are a part of urban living will be fascinated with the new, compact version of this labor of love from the Murrays (Burning New York). The authors, who have been working on this project for eight years, are shocked by the rapid changes to their chosen subject; changes to zoning, rent, and families have contributed to a rapid loss of the sorts of small businesses showcased here, in vivid photos shot on 35mm film. The Murrays divide their book into five chapters, one for each borough, and include neighborhood maps and brief histories. Photographs are accompanied by their own narratives or those of business owners, providing details about former locations, family history, products on display, and more. Manhattan, home to many of the institutions, buildings, and diverse neighborhoods that have made New York famous, occupies nearly half of the book. Readers will feel an immediate nostalgia for the famously walkable city; a single block can contain a bakery, restaurants, stores selling clothing, jewelry, gifts, linens, musical instruments, sporting goods, and more. This handsome little book will make non New Yorkers want to skip Times Square on their next visit in favor of catching some of these neighborhood spots before they're gone for good. --Publishers Weekly
From Publishers Weekly (March 7, 2011): Anyone who loves the compact, diverse small businesses that are a part of urban living will be fascinated with the new, compact version of this labor of love from the Murrays (Burning New York). The authors, who have been working on this project for eight years, are shocked by the rapid changes to their chosen subject; changes to zoning, rent, and families have contributed to a rapid loss of the sorts of small businesses showcased here, in vivid photos shot on 35mm film. The Murrays divide their book into five chapters, one for each borough, and include neighborhood maps and brief histories. Photographs are accompanied by their own narratives or those of business owners, providing details about former locations, family history, products on display, and more. Manhattan, home to many of the institutions, buildings, and diverse neighborhoods that have made New York famous, occupies nearly half of the book. Readers will feel an immediate nostalgia for the famously walkable city; a single block can contain a bakery, restaurants, stores selling clothing, jewelry, gifts, linens, musical instruments, sporting goods, and more. This handsome little book will make non New Yorkers want to skip Times Square on their next visit in favor of catching some of these neighborhood spots before they're gone for good. --Publishers Weekly
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful
By Robin Benson
Format:Hardcover
"Well, it was open last week, I went in and bought something" A familiar thought if you live in a city, large or small, across the Nation and discover that the store that had been there for decades is now closed: probably for good. James and Karla Murray have done us all a favor by capturing, for ever, the changing store front scene in New York. Amazingly, as mentioned in their introduction, almost a third of the stores in the book have closed!
The 220 photos (with some repeated in four huge fold-outs) cover the five boroughs with each getting a simplified street map and the relevant neighborhood indicated, some copy provides background to the name and how the area originated. What gives the book a lift though is the frequent addition of interviews with the storeowners who provide insights about the history of their premises and the products they sell.
All the photos are straight on shots of the store fronts but don't think for a minute that this might be sort of boring because these stores are a kaleidoscope of colorful window displays with products, notices and neon signs, awnings, and an amazing selection of lettering for their names, plus many of them desperately need some renovation and this adds texture to the surrounding building. Photos that are this content rich just don't need any gimmicks or trendy angle shots. The book's large size also adds to their impact (check out the Product Details).
This is a large, chunky, beautifully produced coffee table book (though a shame it wasn't printed with a finer screen than the 175 used). I wouldn't have thought that photos of store fronts would have yielded such a fascinating collection of stunning photos but here they are. A visual treat!
***SEE SOME INSIDE PAGES by clicking 'customer images' under the cover.
The 220 photos (with some repeated in four huge fold-outs) cover the five boroughs with each getting a simplified street map and the relevant neighborhood indicated, some copy provides background to the name and how the area originated. What gives the book a lift though is the frequent addition of interviews with the storeowners who provide insights about the history of their premises and the products they sell.
All the photos are straight on shots of the store fronts but don't think for a minute that this might be sort of boring because these stores are a kaleidoscope of colorful window displays with products, notices and neon signs, awnings, and an amazing selection of lettering for their names, plus many of them desperately need some renovation and this adds texture to the surrounding building. Photos that are this content rich just don't need any gimmicks or trendy angle shots. The book's large size also adds to their impact (check out the Product Details).
This is a large, chunky, beautifully produced coffee table book (though a shame it wasn't printed with a finer screen than the 175 used). I wouldn't have thought that photos of store fronts would have yielded such a fascinating collection of stunning photos but here they are. A visual treat!
***SEE SOME INSIDE PAGES by clicking 'customer images' under the cover.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
By A WRITER
Format:Hardcover
Amazing, enormous book filled with page after page of panorama photos and single mom-and-pop stores. I especially loved the huge fold-outs and reading all the interviews. What else can I say, the book is outstanding and I'll treasure it forever. I've told everyone I know to buy it.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
By La Ura Loos
Format:Hardcover
After looking through Store Front, I felt like I was right back in NYC when I lived there over 40 years ago. The hundreds of gorgeous photos of these old mom-and-pop stores brought back memories of my own neighborhood and shopping trips downtown from The Bronx and summer outings to Coney Island. I also enjoyed reading all the interviews with store owners and finding out the "secret" to their survival. I have this massive book on my table and everyone who comes over spends time flipping through it and want to take it home with them. I plan on visiting many of the stores that were highlighted because the photographers kindly gave the exact address of each store in every borough. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has ever lived in New York, visited New York or just interested in seeing the stores that make NYC the special place that it is.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great to see a part of NYC that is disappearing
Really liked it. The format is perfect...not too big not too small.
Really liked that the photos were taken on 35mm cameras instead of digital. Read more
Really liked that the photos were taken on 35mm cameras instead of digital. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Fabio G. Barbato
5.0 out of 5 stars
New York Book
A good book for fans of NYC neighborhoods. Many familiar spots in all the boroughs. Fun finding my favorites. Great photographs.
Published 8 months ago by Jon DeLise
5.0 out of 5 stars
just as advertised
Arrived as advertised......great photos. A must for Jeremiah's Vanishing NY followers! Would like to see this book
as a series...
as a series...
Published 15 months ago by jo
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great nostalgia book!
I really enjoyed this book. Having grown up in the Metro NYC area, many of these images in the book brought back pleasant memories. Read more
Published 16 months ago by M. Rodriguez
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Book... but this is the smaller version
This is a great look at Store Fronts of NY, great for reference for Set Design, Architecture or just for a look at all of the great details. Read more
Published 22 months ago by BlackhawkDesign
5.0 out of 5 stars
Stunning!
This book is simply superb, unparalleled in it's documentation, it has had me soaking up your New York landscapes, wishing I could go.
Published 23 months ago by Mark A. Russell
4.0 out of 5 stars
look across the street...too late.
It's gone, baby. Gone. So, stop and smell the roses. Take a good look around you. Nothing lasts forever, not even across the street.
Published on March 30, 2011 by Sam Quintin
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great quality
Fine shots of real life storefronts. These are not high-end "history of 20th century" storefronts that show the designer's original intents. Read more
Published on February 13, 2011 by casualtechy
5.0 out of 5 stars
Flickr
I bought this book as a gift for friends and they loved it.
If you want to see more of the book, have a look at some of the authors shots posted on Flickr - [...]
If you want to see more of the book, have a look at some of the authors shots posted on Flickr - [...]
Published on November 28, 2009 by Frank A. Mercurio
5.0 out of 5 stars
For all real New Yorkers
This book shows my New York as it was. Pre Disneyfing of Times Square and the destruction of neighborhoods by the national chains with their steel and glass fronts. Read more
Published on November 2, 2009 by HGF
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