11th Street and Broadway 1951

Robert Frank made this photograph, 11th Street and Broadway, sometime in the mid-20th century. It’s a black and white image, and the greyscale creates a real emotional heft. There’s a figure obscuring their face with a newspaper, and you can see the tension in their hands as they hold it up. The paper is crisp, almost brittle, contrasting with the softer, blurred edges of the figure and the dark void behind. It makes me think about how we navigate public space, the ways we shield ourselves, and the masks we wear. That sliver of newspaper we can see – “New York” – it's like a fragment of a story, a headline without a body. I am reminded of Helen Levitt, another photographer who captured those fleeting moments in New York. Both artists invite us to contemplate the everyday, the beauty and the melancholy that coexist in the urban landscape. It’s all about finding meaning in the in-between spaces.