Here and There

Levitt, who published a more comprehensive monograph in 2001, Crosstown, returns to handpick more than 100 of her photographs for this striking smaller volume. Most of them--over 90, in fact--have not been previously published. The tritone photographs, arranged without title, date or caption, were taken over a seven-decade period; with crisp, spontaneous grace, they reveal the public world of her native city of New York, from dreadlocked pedestrians near 42nd Street to dancing boys from another decade. In his laudatory introduction, New Yorker writer Gopnik calls Levitt a""supreme poet-photographer of the streets and people of New York,"" while acknowledging that what she portrays--graffitied buildings, fighting kids, lonely old men--is not always uplifting. Inspired by Cartier-Bresson, Levitt took pictures that often seem as casual as snapshots--and as serious as documents of a shared, urban history. This monograph of pictures from her personal collection will delight her many fans.