![Black and white photograph depicting men and women sitting and chatting outside houses in the streets of NYC](/sites-drupal/default/files/styles/max_scale_640x640/public/field_ers_item_record_image/2023-04/TL81.jpg?itok=55fvOlGw)
Street life in the Lower East Side
Morris Huberland, 1909–2003
“New York, NY”
New York, ca. 1940–79
Photographer Morris Huberland was known primarily for his vibrant scenes capturing moments on the streets of New York City from the 1930s through the 70s. A large portion of his extensive archive at the Library documents the atmosphere of the Lower East Side, the central destination for generations of Jewish immigrants. His family lived there, too.
Morris Huberland was born as Moses Huberland on August 1, 1909, in Warsaw, Poland, into a traditional rabbinical family with roots in the prominent Lublin and Sanz Hasidic dynasties. His father, Rabbi Eliyahu Chaim Huberland, came to the United States in 1920, and his wife and five children followed in 1924. After living briefly in Philadelphia, the family moved to New York. Morris Huberland was a member of New York’s progressive Photo League from 1940 until 1951, when it became a casualty of the McCarthy-era witch hunts.
Despite its reputation as a poor neighborhood, the Lower East Side was also a place for the younger generation of Americanized immigrants to show off their fashionable garments on its busy streets. In this photograph, a group of snappily dressed young men seem to be enjoying a beautiful spring-like day, their own company, and people-watching. One man has a small improvised display in front of him for selling neckties, while another helps a fashionably dressed young woman light her cigarette.
: Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs
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