Charles H. Traub and Jerry Gordon were commissioned by The New York City Parks Department to document New York City’s great, but often, abandoned and neglected resource—the waterfront. New York On The Edge an exhibition of a 120 images selected from a comprehensive archive of thousands reveals the two artists personal discoveries of the hidden spectacle of where water meets land, and why this city needs to reclaim its best natural resource. The photographs are not pictorial. They are about reality, ruin, degradation, erosion, mismanagement, waste, but also relief, recreation, rest, solitude and community. In Traub’s and Gordon’s pictures, the marginalized New York water-side comes alive as a refuge for a multitude of people of all ethnicities to celebrate and reclaim their place in the city’s last best places. These pictures are intimate, and personal, employing color for its heightened ability to describe—asking the audience to share the possibilities of a new water front.
New York Observed, 1988
New York Observed, 1988
