Ray's Pizza

This photograph was taken on East 14th Street in New York City, where Julian’s Billiards had been a neighborhood landmark for years.

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I had also used this location in other work, including fashion editorial and advertising images, among them photographs I shot for my German client Loden Frey. It was one of those very New York locations that had character built into it.

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What makes this image especially meaningful to me is that it captures details of a city that was already beginning to disappear. Soon after I photographed it, that whole stretch of buildings was torn down.

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For anyone who knows New York, the scene says a lot, the old delivery bicycle parked outside, Ray’s Pizza painted on the side, and even the telephone number without an area code, from a time before that became necessary. It’s a small, quiet piece of old New York that now feels even more like history.

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I later included the image in my book American Mood, published in 2004, and it has been available as a gallery limited edition since then. Now I’m able to share it here for the first time as an art poster, making it accessible to more collectors.