I have in my hands an interesting new book by the photographer Stanley Greenberg, Codex New York: Typologies of The City. In it, Greenberg goes around and takes pictures of largely less-examined parts of Manhattan. What we are really seeing is how Greenberg classifies and slices and dices these spaces in his mind. He separates them into “Alleys,” “Bridge/Tunnel/Track,” “Buttresses,” “Cemeteries,” “Construction,” “Gas/Electric,” “Geology/Topography,’ “Grid/Non-Grid,” “Little Streets,” “Parking Lots,” “Parking Sheds,” “Playgrounds,” “Relics,” “Sanitation,” “Skybridges,” “Vacant Spaces,” “Wastewater Treatment,” “Water Supply,” and “Waterfront.”
My reaction to the book is a good example of how information shapes seeing. I didn’t like or understand the book, until I read the Table of Contents and saw how Greenberg has separated the photographs into these sections. Once armed mentally with the classification system, it all became very interesting, and amusing. Who would ever think of noticing and photographing Parking Sheds. “Buttresses” was one of my favorite sections. It turns out there are numerous buildings supported by steel buttresses, in an ad hoc way, to keep them from falling down. I had not noticed that. So it’s a good book. The introductory Essay by Karrie Jacobs is also nice. As usual, she is readable and insightful. She argues that we are all staring at our screens more, and the city around us less. I don’t quite buy the argument that this somehow lets the city change in unexpected or unwanted ways, but it’s an interesting theory. Oh yeah: the word “Palimpsest” does not occur in the book, as far as I noted. But it could.
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