Frederick Douglass Boulevard/116th Street Possibly 1989 - 1990

This photograph, Frederick Douglass Boulevard/116th Street, was taken by Madoka Takagi. Just imagine her, camera in hand, looking up and out. The city! It’s all here, in tones of gray. The photo is of a street corner, maybe in Harlem, with old painted advertisements looming, faded and ghostly. There is a used police car for sale! I feel for Takagi, picturing her framing this shot, thinking about the layers of history, the grit and texture of the city walls. It is like a drawing, an etching maybe, with lines scratched into the sky. There is something about how the light hits the wall, capturing a sense of time passing. This is a beautiful record of time and place. I see connections with other photographers who documented New York City’s changing urban landscape, like Berenice Abbott, each capturing their own moment in time. Takagi reminds us that every image is a conversation, a gesture, a form of embodied expression.