The Village

This never-before-published book of photographs by Weegee the Famous (a.k.a. Arthur Fellig, 18991968) reflects the sweeter side of an artist better known for depicting three-alarm disasters. Before he died, Weegee composed a dummy for a book about New Yorks Greenwich Village, the center of American bohemia in the late 40s and throughout the 50s. Weegee was there, prowling the neighborhood at all times of day and night, and in this book he captures the carnival atmospherethe folk singing, rent parties, costume balls, art shows on the street. He would visit the cafs where James Dean might just have dropped in, the bars where customers brought along their pets. Washington Square, the center of the Village, figures in many of these photographs, which are arranged in the order devised by Weegee along with his original introduction. Regarded as one of the major figures of twentieth-century photography, Weegee here produced some of his happiest, funniest, warmest pictures of a city he loved.