There’s no shortage of images from New York City’s subway system, with millions of smartphone-toting riders each day. Yet for much of the last century, until 1994, photography in the city’s rapid transit system was illegal (though it was a spottily enforced offense). In the late 1930s — soon after the city imposed its ban — Helen Levitt, a young Bensonhurst native, apprenticed with Walker Evans as he photographed unsuspecting commuters.
Mr. Evans hoped to capture the “parade of unselfconscious captive sitters,” so to avoid being caught, he painted his 35 mm camera black, tucked it into his coat with the lens poking out from between buttons, and triggered the shutter with a cable release that snaked down his sleeve.
Ms. Levitt’s task? She distracted the passengers.
Not surprisingly, Ms. Levitt was soon taking her own subway portraits, first with Mr. Evans’s gear, and then with her own camera, possibly using the same technique. Though Ms. Levitt moved into cinematography and was eventually nominated for an Academy Award, she would, three years after Mr. Evans died in 1975, return underground to photograph passengers. A new book called, “Manhattan Transit: The Subway Photographs of Helen Levitt,” released by Walther Konig Verlag, compiles photographs from both decades.
It is clear which photographs were taken when, with those from the 1930s featuring art deco posters, elaborate furs, and jauntily-tilted hats, while those from the 1970s had equally elegant sitters, but against the backdrop of graffiti. In some photos, the subjects appear to be looking right at Ms. Levitt, adding further mystery about her technique.
It’s hard to know how she operated, since Ms. Levitt, who died at age 95 in 2009, spoke little of her work. “If it were easy to talk about, I’d be a writer,” she said. “Since I’m inarticulate, I express myself with images.”
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