In early June four friends drove from Chicago in a "drive away" car service to New York City. We drove through the night and arrived the next day which was no mean feat. After dropping the car off we continued onto the Gramercy Park Hotel on Lexington Street in the heart of Manhattan. The hotel has a fabulous private park that can be seen in another album on my website called, 1977 NEW YORK, ROME. The photos are a look back to a time when NYC was a gritty city struggling with the aftermath of a major blackout that lasted for 25 hours and led to looting and fires in the street. Lucky for us we were in NYC one month earlier. Can you imagine being stuck on the tramway during the outage? The tramway can be seen in Frames #12, 15, 18 & 19. The Ladder 20 Fire Department can be seen in #3 with a red, white & blue Bi-centennial eagle spread over the garage door. Their address is 253 Lafayette St, New York NY. Sadly there were seven members from Ladder 20 who died on the 35th floor of the North Tower on 9/11. The remainder of the photos are random sights from around the city that include my three traveling companions making way for a sight impaired man in Frame # 01. My shadow appears against the sidewalk grate in Frame # 04. “The Best” sign with the cheeky slogan appears in Frame # 06. If I were to pick my favorite in the group it would be Frame #5 of the men in the red truck off to another day of work. Feel free to critique it for yourself. The trip to New York was but a pit stop to the next destination, Rome Italy!
© Diane Alexander White PHOTOGRAPHY