Matt Weber (Street photography), homeless, Men of New York, Old New York

“The Last Days of the Bowery” 1986

bowery-bum-matt-weberI have mixed emotions about this picture. He came up to my cab looking for some money, which he got, but I felt compelled to take a picture of a man who had lost everything. I know he may have had a rough childhood and taken to the bottle at an early age, but I also can’t help but wonder if he had served his country many years earlier. If he was 60 when I took this picture, he would have been 18 in 1944. He could have seen things no one should have  in Europe or the South Pacific, and he certainly could have been old enough to have served in Korea. I realize it’s total conjecture, but I think many of the poor men who ended up on the Bowery, were at one point soldiers…

Matt Weber (Street photography), Fights & Playfights, homeless, Old New York, Urban Landscape

“The Minnesota Strip” 1989

Back in the 1970s the stretch on 8th Ave. north of the port authority, was called “The Minnesota Strip” because of the large amount of runaway teens (from the mid-west) that would get off the bus and wander up 8th Ave. Often these kids were preyed upon instantly as they got off the Greyhound bus by the local pimps, and within days they were selling their bodies for their new employers…

All Photos © Matt Weber

This is the photo Joe Lhota stole from me!

BUY this PRINT!