An interesting collection of crime scene photographs from the coffers of the Daily News. The most famous photo is the image of Ruth Snyder on the electric chair, which is reproduced in its full negative version here, which I had never seen before. There are a number of ghastly images, but the most powerful ones are the stark "noirish" shots of detectives and prisoners on their way to the courthouse, or at the scene of the crime in the process of being arrested. A fascinating collection.

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Product Description

During the golden age of tabloid photography--from the 1920s to the 1950s--photojournalists created some of the most innovate and enduring images in the history of photography. Photos of crimes and criminals, more than any other subject, captured the public imagination. Here for the first time is a selection of the most outstanding crime photographs from the archive of America's premier tabloid newspaper, the New York Daily News

Author William Hannigan demonstrates how these groundbreaking photos helped create the visual style that we now associate with film noir classics from Double Indemnity to Chinatown and L.A. Confidential. Narrating the history of tabloid photography, Hannigan tells how hard-hitting pictures helped the Daily News win the tabloid wars on the 1920s, earning it the title of "New York's Picture Newspaper." An introduction by Luc Sante, author of Low Life and Evidence, examines the impact of these pictures on their original audience and how differently we see them today.

Capturing the mystery and drama of real-life "news noir," the photographs in this volume are both visually sophisticated and relentlessly revealing of human nature's dark side. An eloquent portrait of a city and an epoch, this book is not to be missed by crime buffs, photography lovers, or students of New York City's past.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #391648 in Books
• Published on: 1999-11-20
• Released on: 1999-11-20
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 160 pages

Amazon.com Review
When Ruth Snyder was electrocuted at Sing Sing Prison in 1928, New York Daily News photographer Tom Howard was there--with a miniature camera he'd hidden under the cuff of his pants. The resulting snapshot made the front page the next morning (under the headline "DEAD!") and provoked fierce controversy among those wondering if tabloid journalism had finally gone too far. But, as Luc Sante points out in his introduction to New York Noir, a selection of pictures from the Daily News archives, the tabloids "retailed exclamation points"--Snyder in the electric chair was merely an extreme example of imagery that was a regular staple of the paper's coverage.

Many of the photos in New York Noir are not for the squeamish: corpses in the street or slumped in their car seats appear regularly, as do battered and bloodied criminals and suspects. But the power of these stark images is unmistakable--they are, as the book's title indicates, the raw material for the gritty vision of urban life that film noir popularized. For some people, tabloid crime photos are synonymous with Arthur "Weegee" Fellig; only one of his pictures graces these pages, however, and the other photographers represented here (many identified only by last name or no name at all) demonstrate that his reputation relies as much on promotional hustle as on artistic merit. Whenever possible, archivist William Hannigan supplies background information on the people and incidents in the pictures--but it is the images themselves, rather than the stories, that will stick in the reader's mind. --Ron Hogan

About the Author
William Hannigan is an archivist who has been editing the Daily News photo library for three years.

Luc Sante, author of Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York and Evidence, has written extensively on both New York City and photography.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Shortly after 11 p.m. on the night of January 12, 1928, Ruth Snyder, convicted murderess, was led into the death house at Sing Sing prison to be the first woman to face the electric chair. As she entered she faced a small hushed crowd of prison officials and reporters who were allowed to witness the event. An ominous black hood was lowered over her head; her eyes still peering out, she was bound and shackled and the electrodes set. This was the price she was going to pay for the calculated bludgeoning, poisoning and strangulation of a husband she no longer cared for. As the executioner threw the switch that sent the retribution coursing through her body another man in attendance simultaneously triggered a shutter release that would forever capture the moment and blanket it in controversy. Unbeknownst to the prison officials, Tom Howard, a photographer from the Daily News, had covertly raised his pant cuff to uncover a miniature camera linked to a shutter release that snaked up his leg to his pocket. DEAD!, was the single word that accompanied his picture which ran on the paper's front page for the next two days and sold a sensational 500,000 copies.

During the first nine years of its existence that Daily News had managed to push the envelope in photojournalism to a level some believed reprehensibly uncivil. To those the Snyder picture was proof positive.

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Customer Reviews

NOIR MANIA FOR REAL
A quality photography book that visually recounts pertinent steps in the history of noir photography and more specifically, the creation of the term noir as it pertains to film and photography in the 20th c. in New York City. A breath of realism, history and fact that beautifully illustrates a fine curatorial example of the kinds of images published by the Daily News that made this paper a forerunner in the telling of real stories suffered and celebrated by real people. William Hannigan is to be commended for his fine selection of photographic and negative samples of a time not long past and still very alive in the movies and crime documents that inspire and fascinate us today. A necessary addition to any photo library of value.

Wow and whoa
What a cool book. It's sometimes disturbing to see some of these images of crime as beautiful, but they are beautiful, there's no escaping it. I picked it up because I like the whole genre of noir, but this book makes it very clear where Hollywood got all its ideas. Both essays are very good and informative, but what really marks this as a special book to me are the gorgeous photos and riveting stories of the people on both sides of crime in the city of the century, NYC.

A Step Back In Time
If you are a fan of photography, this book is definately for you. NEW YORK NOIR is chock full of amazing photographs that were the staple of the "New York Daily News." In this book, you get to see some of the poignant images that help define the term noir, and its connection to the silver screen industry, not to mention its effects on tabloid journalism. Many of these same black and white photogrpahs were often used as references to assist in making modern day motion pictures, helping to give a look into the past. From the days of "Three-Gun" Turner to the electrocution of Ruth Snyder, this book captures New York's horrid crime life in a candid, in-your-face style. There is nothing but unhidden truth in each and every photograph. NEW YORK NOIR is a well designed book loaded with powerful images and somewhat detailed descriptions. It is fascinating, riveting, and gives you a decent look at the roots of photojournalism. You can't help but be intrigued by the gritty, graphic photos that once graced the pages of a daily newspaper. It is one amazingly good book.