CLAY, Langdon - 42nd Street, 1979

Personal statement by Langdon CLAY

“It was with this coming change written on every wall that I sought to record for posterity that famous block between 7th and 8th Avenues, my only regret is that I didn’t do the south side of the street.” (Langdon CLAY)

Background information

"The particular stretch of 42nd Street between 7th and 8th Avenues had now shifted from the glorious home of gilded movie palaces of the 1940s to the shadowy site of porn theaters which many saw as the area’s ruin. Yet here real-estate moguls saw potential to transform this heart of Manhattan into a mecca of tourism, framed by skyscrapers and shaped by commerce and fast pleasures.

Content

The photographic volume '42nd Street, 1979' by Langdon CLAY contains photographs of a quintessential strip of 42nd Street near New York’s Times Square, showing its gritty neon charm before it became the more Disney/Las Vegas hub for theater concoctions that we know today.

The US-American recalls the drab and dusty mood in New York City at the end of the 1970s: the once-exciting political sea change wrought by the Vietnam War and the Haight Ashbury drug experiment had given way to a sense of apathy, intensified by the aftermath of an oil crisis and the lingering Cold War." (© Steidl Verlag, 2022)

About US-American photographer, Langdon CLAY

Photo books by Langdon CLAY