Mainly photos of NY & the US, historical, recent. Mine unless credited otherwise. Note: this blog rejects reactionary, racist & classist ideologies.
No kings.
An image like this is inevitably so rich in details I felt sure Iâd zero in on an actual location if I could only reduce the murkiness of the original. So I ran it through Lightroom to produce the non-definitive edit above.
Weâre clearly looking up Sixth Avenue. From where? Thereâs an Automat sign at the next block but a Google map of old Automat locations doesnât show anything likely before the Herald Square area. This pic looks further downtown (although it was 1965.)
Well, anyway, a bit easier to see now. Apologies to Mr Mitchell and thanks to oldnewyork for sharing the original.
Along with âThe Catcher in the Rye,â J. D. Salingerâs Holden Caulfield turns 75 today, July 16. Thatâs a long time for anyone to remain a 17
Along with âThe Catcher in the Rye,â J. D. Salingerâs Holden Caulfield turns 75 today, July 16. Thatâs a long time for anyone to remain a 17-year-old, but Holden, a New Yorker through and through, has, like Huck Finn, defied going out of date.
As a college teacher, I am never surprised by students who have read âThe Catcher in the Ryeâ before they get to my class. Salingerâs novel is assigned reading in high schools across the country as well as a book of choice for many students before they get to high school.
The question I ask myself is whether Holden can continue to be as meaningful to students as he was to me growing up at a time when adults were made uneasy just by Holdenâs way of speaking.
Todayâs âanxious generation,â as Generation Z (those born between 1997 and 2012) has been labelled, faces a social world very different from Holdenâs by virtue of having Instagram, TikTok, and smart phones as constants in their daily lives.
Holden, by contrast, seeks out alone time. He feels free to trust his own intuitions and to test himself with constant reading. As he jokingly puts it, âIâm quite illiterate, but I read a lot.â âThe Catcher in the Ryeâ is filled with Holdenâs references to authors as different as Thomas Hardy and F. Scott Fitzgerald, whom he has read with great seriousness.
This seriousness is consistent with Holdenâs deepest feelings. He worries more about others than himself. He even worries about the ducks in Central Park surviving the winter once the lagoon they live in freezes over.
When Holdenâs 10-year-old sister asks him what he wants to do when he grows up, he tells her he wants to be a catcher in the rye and save children like those in Robert Burnsâ poem âCominâ Thro the Ryeâ from falling off a cliff. And when a teacher tells Holden life is a game, he thinks about what it means to be on the losing side in the game. âIf you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, then itâs a game all right â Iâll admit that,â he sarcastically says to himself.
Holdenâs favorite word is âphony.â He applies it liberally to those he thinks are frauds. When âThe Catcher in the Ryeâ was published, a reviewer for The New Yorker, assured readers Holdenâs harsh judgments would not last into adulthood. âHe will even become more tolerant of phonies â it is part of the mechanics of living,â the reviewer concluded.
But in âThe Catcher in the Ryeâ Holden gives no indication that he is going to be tolerant of phonies in the future. Despite being kicked out of four schools, Holden never promises he is going to âapply himselfâ in his next school. âI mean how do you know what youâre going to do till you do it?â he asks.
Holden isnât trying to be evasive about what is in store for him. He is just claiming for himself the right to be a work in progress, a claim that makes as much sense for a 17-year-old today as it did in 1951 for Holden.
I donât expect my students to identify with Holden the same way I did. Why should they follow my example? It is enough, I think, that many of my students find echoes of Holdenâs thinking in their own. He reminds them that there is honor in distrusting those in authority, even the president, when they ask us to live in a world where threats and bullying are the norm.
Nicolaus Mills is author of âThe Triumph of Meanness: Americaâs War Against its Better Self.â He is co-chair of the literature department at Sarah Lawrence College.
Reproduction Number:Â LC-DIG-highsm-10246 (original digital file)
Rights Advisory:Â No known restrictions on publication.
Call Number:Â LC-DIG-highsm- 10246 (ONLINE) [P&P]
Repository:Â Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print
Notes:
East Capitol St. is a major street that divides the NE and SE quadrants of Washington, D.C. It runs due east from the U.S. Capitol to the DC-Maryland border. The western stretch of East Capitol St., which passes through the heart of Washington's Capitol Hill neighborhood, includes some of the priciest real estate in the city.
Title, date, subject note, and keywords provided by the photographer.
Credit line: The George F. Landegger Collection of District of Columbia Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith's America, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
Gift; George F. Landegger; 2010; (DLC/PP-2010:176).
Forms part of the George F. Landegger Collection of District of Columbia Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith's America Project in the Carol M. Highsmith Archive.
Subjects:
United States--District of Columbia--Washington (D.C.)
America
row houses
Capitol Hill neighborhood
neighborhoods
gardens
and incidentally my old neighborhood but it was not that pricey in those days
On 13 July Maryland Public Television broadcast âCapturing America: The Carol Highsmith Storyâ about a remarkable photographer still active. The program was well worth a viewing by anyone interested in photography or in the day-to-day life of the United States. It was a welcome antidote to the travesty which was the official 250th anniversary celebration of the Declaration of Independence. The program is likely to be repeated on other Public Television stations in the near future, and it is recommended to anyone with an interest in photography and life in the United States.
Highsmith worked for decades, often with only a pittance of a budget, documenting landscapes, people and activities across the United States. She gave her collection to the Library of Congress where her work is available royalty free from the Library of Congress website in easily downloadable .jpeg and .tiff files. The archive is a remarkable one and well worth an on-line visit.
An image like this is inevitably so rich in details I felt sure I'd zero in on an actual location if I could only reduce the murkiness of the original. So I ran it through Lightroom to produce the non-definitive edit above.
We're clearly looking up Sixth Avenue. From where? There's an Automat sign at the next block but a Google map of old Automat locations doesn't show anything likely before the Herald Square area. This pic looks further downtown (although it was 1965.)
Well, anyway, a bit easier to see now. Apologies to Mr Mitchell and thanks to oldnewyork for sharing the original.
dailybridgerton
pixelskylines
theartofmadeline
vaporwave
origamiaround
areudirty
