Street Scenes of New York City in the 1970s and 1980s by Edward Grazda

Edward Grazda’s black-and-white photographs of New York City have a special power. They take us back to a different time – a grittier, rougher version of the city we might recognize today. Grazda’s photos show us the raw, unfiltered essence of what New York was like in the 1970s and 80s.

Grazda was a master of street photography. His work often focused on ordinary people going about their daily lives. There’s a stark honesty in how he captured these moments. His photographs often showed people on the fringes of society, those who found shelter in cheap hotels or weathered the elements outdoors. There’s a sense of struggle and hardship, but there’s also a quiet resilience.

You can see it in the faces of those he photographed. The lines on their foreheads tell of hard lives lived, but there’s often a glimmer in their eyes as well. You get the feeling that these people had stories to tell, tales of survival and strength in the face of challenging circumstances.

One place that fascinated Grazda was the Bowery, a once-notorious stretch of Manhattan. It was New York’s Skid Row, a place where those down on their luck often made a last stand. His book, “On the Bowery”, is a testament to how this part of the city looked in the 1970s, and the type of people you’d find there.

While the photos show a very specific era in New York’s history, they also feel timeless and universal. We can relate to the human emotions his photographs stir, even if the world looks very different today.