Alphabet City: New York Public Library Talk

Alphabet City, Then and Now: Lower East Side Photographs by Geoffrey Biddle

March 15, 2025

After years away from this project, I realized that the photographs alone did not fully convey all I had come to know and feel about the people I encountered in Alphabet City—I missed their voices. More than ten years after first beginning the series, I returned to locate and interview many of those I had photographed, hoping to capture their perspectives and deepen the narrative behind the images. Today, I am continuing and updating this work, expanding it to intertwine past and present through both photographs and stories.

On March 15, 2025, the New York Public Library’s Tompkins Square Branch hosted a presentation entitled “Alphabet City, Then and Now.” In this recorded talk, I revisited my photographs of Manhattan’s Lower East Side from 1977 to 1989, discussed the stories and relationships behind the images, and reflected on how this long-term project has shaped my life’s work and ongoing practice as a photographer.