Weegee is a restless photographer who has been everywhere and everywhere

Old photos always arouse interest. But there are just old photos, and there are photos taken by Weegee. This is something very special, even by modern standards. "A man is a plug in every hole" is about him. An extremely restless photographer who was everywhere and everywhere. He worked as a freelancer and specialized in criminal photography, selling pictures to all New York newspapers.

Widgie's real name is Arthur Fellig. He was born in 1889 in the town of Zolochiv, which is now located on the territory of Ukraine, and then was part of the Austrian Empire. In 1909, his parents brought him to New York, where he changed a lot of jobs, including those related to photography, until in 1935 he became a freelance photographer. According to him, he did not wait for someone to offer him a decent job, but created this job himself. He spent the first two years in the police department, while not having any accreditation. When a message about an incident came to the teletype, he drove there as quickly as possible, arriving at the murder scene before the police, and at the fire before the firefighters. He developed and printed photos right in the trunk of his car. In 1938, he became the only reporter in New York who received permission to use a police radio. Weegee left behind a huge number of photographs, which are unique material that gives an idea of the everyday details of New York life in the 1930s and 1950s. These are probably the most vivid black-and-white photos I've seen. Now Fellig's works are stored in the largest art museums, and the auction value of one picture exceeds $ 1,000.

Charles Sadkoff and Arthur Webber in a police van, 1942

A policeman blocks a fire hydrant, 1944

Under the Bowery Subway line

Thongs, 1950

Critic, 1943

Easter in Harlem, 1940

Street vendor

A man arrested for dressing up as a woman, 1939

Transvestite in a police van, 1939

The last kiss before being sent to the unit, 1942

Cops, 1940

Shy

In the cafeteria on East Broadway, 1940s

Nochlezhka, 1938

In the cinema, 1945

The Walking Shop, 1940s

At the crime scene, 1940

U.S. Hotel, 1940

Sleeping in a bar, 1939

The incident at Grand Central Station, 1944

"Just put them in boiling water" (on the roof of the building advertising sausages)

At the East Side murder scene, 1943

At a jazz concert

Children on the fire escape, 1938. (Before the era of air conditioners, this was a completely normal phenomenon. Those who didn't have stairs slept outside)

In the circus, 1943

The Coney Island Crowd, 1940

Queue at the night court, 1941

Waii

Lovers in a bar in Bowery

In front of the market in Fort Greene, 1943

At a metro station during a massive power outage, 1943

Summer on the Lower East Side, 1937

A woman whose legs gave way after she found out about her husband's death, 1940

Before the show, 1950

And then she started crying. At a Frank Sinatra concert, 1944

Victims of the cruise ship accident, 1941

The vegetable merchant, 1946

A woman gives an autograph

I fell asleep in the cinema

Drunk in front of a restaurant, 1945

A vacationer who got sick on the beach (the girl has a good reaction to the photographer)

Sentenced to death in the gas chamber. On the forehead is the logo of the Westinghouse Electric Company

Anthony Esposito, arrested on suspicion of the murder of a policeman, 1941

Harry Maxwell, shot in his own car, 1941

Hats in the billiard room on Mulberry Street, 1943

A policeman pulls the body of an ambulance driver out of the water, 1943

Weegee at the murder scene

Weegee in his studio

source