Weegee - Photography

Weegee was a great American photographer of life in New York from the 1930's to the 1950's. He started out as a freelance newspaper photographer and captured the crime, the parties, the jazz concerts, everything. He published several books included Weegee's World, which gained him great fame, and by the end of his career, he was no longer chasing police scanner leads but taking cover photos of celebrities for Vogue. The pictures below include a photo of the American Kitchen Products building on fire in July of 1937. The picture below that is from 1941, Weegee visited the Lower East Side, where he found these children sleeping on a tenement fire escape at Irving and Rivington Streets. Weegee says he gave the kids $2 for ice cream. But their father took charge of the dough. Weegee captured true life in an honest, beautiful, straightforward manner.