"Please won't you be my neighbor, Sam Neuberger?"
Yesterday was truly a great day for finding hidden jewels. It all started when I decided I wanted to go to Cardomat, my favorite card store, to stock up on beautiful thank you cards for when I'm gone. The bus stop is across the street from the store, however, which means I have to pass this one street vendor on the northwest corner of 111th and Broadway -- the same vendor who sold me the fashion sketches a few months ago.
Although the majority of the inventory is vinyls, there's always a small dolly beside the table with random papers and folders. Yesterday on the dolly sat an old photo album formerly belonging to a Mr. Sam Neuberger, who, we discovered, once lived on 181st Street. As we looked through the photographs from the 40s and 50s, I realized that I couldn't let this man's life just sit for sale on a street vendor's cart. And so I bought Mr. Neuberger's life for $25.
Now I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that I did the exact thing that I feared would happen to the album. But no -- I bought Mr. Neuberger's album because I valued the life and history contained therein, and my decision was only reinforced as we paid for the piece and the vendor raved about the vintage firetruck photos inside the book. Imagine somebody buying this treasure for just firetruck pictures -- disgraceful.
On the left is a headshot of (I assume) Sam Neuberger, and to the right, sketched on the back of another copy of the same headshot, is a sketch of shabbat, or Yom Kippur, with the challah and the cup for wine drawn inside a Star of David.
This particular photo I really love -- it's almost too amazing to be real.
Here is one of my favorite spreads. Note the wedding photo (third photo down on the far left) and the beach pictures in the far top-right corner.
More too-good-to-be-true photos. The one of Sam sitting at the table in shades almost looks like a still from a movie.
The intimacy in this shot makes it my absolute favorite photograph.
The view here is taken from way uptown (181st Street, I assume) looking southbound down Broadway. In the very far distance on the right, you can see the silhouette of The Riverside Church in the City of New York. These days our apartment building (c. 1970-something) would block the view of the church, but it did not exist at the time this photo was taken.
In the back of the album are a bunch of old postcards from the 1970s (left) and old file folders with handwritten names and numbers covering the outsides. Above is a small glimpse of those.
Although the majority of the inventory is vinyls, there's always a small dolly beside the table with random papers and folders. Yesterday on the dolly sat an old photo album formerly belonging to a Mr. Sam Neuberger, who, we discovered, once lived on 181st Street. As we looked through the photographs from the 40s and 50s, I realized that I couldn't let this man's life just sit for sale on a street vendor's cart. And so I bought Mr. Neuberger's life for $25.
Now I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that I did the exact thing that I feared would happen to the album. But no -- I bought Mr. Neuberger's album because I valued the life and history contained therein, and my decision was only reinforced as we paid for the piece and the vendor raved about the vintage firetruck photos inside the book. Imagine somebody buying this treasure for just firetruck pictures -- disgraceful.
On the left is a headshot of (I assume) Sam Neuberger, and to the right, sketched on the back of another copy of the same headshot, is a sketch of shabbat, or Yom Kippur, with the challah and the cup for wine drawn inside a Star of David.
This particular photo I really love -- it's almost too amazing to be real.
Here is one of my favorite spreads. Note the wedding photo (third photo down on the far left) and the beach pictures in the far top-right corner.
More too-good-to-be-true photos. The one of Sam sitting at the table in shades almost looks like a still from a movie.
The intimacy in this shot makes it my absolute favorite photograph.
The view here is taken from way uptown (181st Street, I assume) looking southbound down Broadway. In the very far distance on the right, you can see the silhouette of The Riverside Church in the City of New York. These days our apartment building (c. 1970-something) would block the view of the church, but it did not exist at the time this photo was taken.
In the back of the album are a bunch of old postcards from the 1970s (left) and old file folders with handwritten names and numbers covering the outsides. Above is a small glimpse of those.