Guide to the "William Meyers: Civics" Exhibition Photographs
2002-2016
PR 394
New-York Historical Society
170 Central Park West
New York, NY 10024
(212) 873-3400
New-York Historical Society
Collection processed by Joseph Ditta
This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on May 31, 2019
English using Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Descriptive Summary
| Creator: | Meyers, William, 1938- |
|---|---|
| Title: | "William Meyers: Civics" exhibition photographs |
| Dates [inclusive]: | 2002-2016 |
| Abstract: | Photographs exhibited in October 2016 as "William Meyers: Civics" at Nailya Alexander Gallery, New York. Through sections labeled "Politics," "Demonstrations," "Press," and "Powwows," Meyers' images explore the ways in which individual citizens involve themselves in the procedures, rituals, symbols, and rhetoric of American democracy. |
| Quantity: | 37 Photographic Prints in 5 flat boxes. |
| Call Phrase: | PR 394 |
Biographical note
William Meyers was born in 1938 in Providence, Rhode Island. He received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Pennsylvania. From 1962 to 1965, during the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, he served as an Air Intelligence Officer in the United States Navy Reserve, and later joined the staff of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Employment, Manpower and Poverty. In the 1990s, after a successful career as a businessman and investor, he turned his attention to photography and pursued his studies at the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York. From 2002 to 2008, he regularly wrote photography reviews for The New York Sun, and in 2008 he began writing a regular column as well as feature articles on photography for The Wall Street Journal.
Meyers' focus is New York City, particularly as a lived city of neighborhoods and working people. In 2008, the New York Public Library acquired a portfolio of prints from "Outer Boroughs: New York Beyond Manhattan," and exhibited the prints at the library in 2015. That same year, Outer Boroughs was published as a book by Damiani. Richard Rivera wrote in the New York Journal of Books, "Meyers' vision of the city's open spaces is gritty, detailed, and often stark rather than romanticized . . . His portrayal of the people of New York is full of character, attitude, and generosity of spirit."
Meyers' work has been featured in the New York Times, The New York Sun, the Observer, and The Guardian, among other publications. He has lectured on photography and served on panels at ICP; the City University of New York; the State University of New York; Long Island University; and the National Foundation for Jewish Culture. His photographs can be found in the collections of the New York Public Library, the New-York Historical Society, the Museum of the City of New York, and the Department of Classics, Harvard University, among other institutions.
William Meyers lives and works in New York.
[This information was supplied by Nailya Alexander Gallery, New York.]
Scope and Contents
"William Meyers: Civics," an exhibition originally shown at Nailya Alexander Gallery, October 5–29, 2016, explores the ways in which individual citizens involve themselves in the procedures, rituals, symbols, and rhetoric of American democracy. Taking as its epigraph a quote from an essay by David and Nathan Tucker—"Civic life is the life we live in dealing with problems of common concern" (Music and Civic Life in America, 2013)—the four-part exhibition includes images of the formal political process, from volunteers and voters to the politicians themselves, and also covers lectures, conferences, protests, demonstrations, charitable activities, and symbolic expressions of civic engagement. Part I, "Politics," addresses the formal processes for dealing with the issues of civic life. Part II, "Demonstrations," probes the manner in which groups make known their particular concerns. Part III, "Press," addresses how these concerns are reported to the public, and Part IV, "Powwows," is a study of the lectures, conferences, meetings, and social gatherings where problems and plans are discussed. Meyers' photographs track more than a decade of New York City's civic life, from the cramped newsroom of a neighborhood newspaper in Queens in 2002 to the events surrounding the proposed mosque near Ground Zero in 2010, and from the Occupy Wall Street demonstration in 2011 to a rally against the Iran nuclear deal in 2015. The project, Meyers writes, "is not so much about politicians or ideology as it is about the way individual citizens involve themselves in civic processes . . . Civics is about the organs of government, but also what people take upon themselves to do for the communities in which they live."
[This note is drawn from a press release issued by Nailya Alexander Gallery, New York.]
Arrangement
The photographs in "William Meyers: Civics" are sorted in the four sections in which they were exhibited at Nailya Alexander Gallery in October 2016:
I. Politics
II. Demonstrations
III. Press
IV. Powwows
The prints were numbered consecutively, from 1 to 37, in the exhibit's object list; the archivist has copied these numbers (in pencil) on the back of each mat, and included them in the container list, below. All prints measure 11 x 14 inches, with the exception of numbers 10, 20, 23, and 28, each of which measures 16 x 20 inches.
Access Points
Document Type
- Gelatin silver prints.
- Photographs.
Subject Topics
- Demonstrations -- New York (State) -- New York.
- Local elections -- New York (State) -- New York.
- Occupy movement -- New York (State) -- New York.
- Press -- New York (State) -- New York.
Administrative Information
Access Restrictions
Open to qualified researchers by appointment only.
Use Restrictions
Permission to reproduce any Department of Prints, Photographs and Architectural Collections holdings through publication must be obtained from: Rights and Reproductions, The New-York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West, New York, NY 10024. Phone: (212) 873-3400 ext. 270. Fax: (212) 579-8794.
Preferred Citation
This collection should be cited as: "William Meyers: Civics" exhibition photographs, PR 394, Department of Prints, Photographs, and Architectural Collections, The New-York Historical Society.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Gift of Richard S. Frary, 2016 (accession no. PPAC-2016-050).
Processing Information
Archivist Joseph Ditta arranged and described this collection in May 2019.
Container List
I. Politics
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| Container 1 | Container 2 | Title | Date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Box: 1 | Item : 01 | Listening to the candidate, Rego Park, Queens |
2011 August 25 | |
| Box: 1 | Item : 02 | Meeting the candidate, Harlem |
2010 October 19 | |
| Box: 1 | Item : 03 | Candidate working the phone, Midtown |
2010 September 28 | |
| Box: 1 | Item : 04 | Campaign strategist, Midtown |
2010 September 28 | |
| Box: 1 | Item : 05 | Leafleting, Upper East Side |
2010 October 19 | |
| Box: 1 | Item : 06 | Watching primary campaign debate, Manhattan Republican Club, Upper East Side |
2015 December 15 | |
| Box: 1 | Item : 07 | Entering polling place, Upper West Side |
2010 November 2 | |
| Box: 1 | Item : 08 | Election night, Republican Headquarters, Hilton Hotel |
2011 November 2 | |
| Box: 1 | Item : 09 | Election night, losing candidate's headquarters, Harlem |
2010 November 2 | |
| Box: 5 (16 x 20) | Item : 10 | City Hall and Municipal Building, Civic Center |
2011 January 4 | |
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II. Demonstrations
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| Container 1 | Container 2 | Title | Date | |
| Box: 2 | Item : 11 | Pro-Israel rally defending the Gaza flotilla raid, Times Square |
2010 June 3 | |
| Box: 2 | Item : 12 | Westboro Baptist Church rally, Second Avenue at East 42nd Street |
2009 September 24 | |
| Box: 2 | Item : 13 | People's Climate March, Central Park |
2014 September 21 | |
| Box: 2 | Item : 14 | AIDS Walk, Riverside Drive |
2011 May 15 | |
| Box: 2 | Item : 15 | Rally for Ground Zero Mosque, St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church |
2010 September 12 | |
| Box: 2 | Item : 16 | Union rat, Madison Avenue, Midtown |
2011 January 26 | |
| Box: 2 | Item : 17 | Anti-Iran nuclear deal rally, Second Avenue at 48th Street |
2015 September 1 | |
| Box: 2 | Item : 18 | Fight for $15 / National Day of Action, Cadman Plaza, Brooklyn |
2015 November 10 | |
| Box: 3 | Item : 19 | Falun Gong demonstration, Dag Hammarskjold Plaza |
2009 September 24 | |
| Box: 5 (16 x 20) | Item : 20 | Occupy Wall Street, Zuccotti Park, Financial District |
2011 October 6 | |
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III. Press
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| Container 1 | Container 2 | Title | Date | |
| Box: 3 | Item : 21 | Neighborhood paper, Bayside, Queens |
2002 January 22 | |
| Box: 3 | Item : 22 | Editor & publisher, Kings County Politics, Kensington, Brooklyn |
2015 October 8 | |
| Box: 5 (16 x 20) | Item : 23 | Newsroom, New York Daily News, Wall Street area |
2015 March 19 | |
| Box: 3 | Item : 24 | Reporter questioning Congressional Representative, Sutton Place |
2010 October 26 | |
| Box: 3 | Item : 25 | Interviewing the candidate, Tribeca |
2010 August 22 | |
| Box: 3 | Item : 26 | Dedication of David H. Koch Plaza, Metropolitan Museum of Art |
2014 September 9 | |
| Box: 3 | Item : 27 | Media protest, Midtown |
2010 October 17 | |
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IV. Powwows
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| Container 1 | Container 2 | Title | Date | |
| Box: 5 (16 x 20) | Item : 28 | Second annual town hall meeting, West 83rd Street Church of the Redeemer |
2015 April 27 | |
| Box: 3 | Item : 29 | Charter school principal addressing parents of prospective students, Upper West Side |
2010 December 1 | |
| Box: 4 | Item : 30 | Conversation on Civil Society, Institute for American Values, Columbus Circle |
2011 September 22 | |
| Box: 4 | Item : 31 | West Side Republican Club, 63rd Street YMCA |
2014 June 6 | |
| Box: 4 | Item : 32 | Staff meeting, non-profit legal services provider for indigent women, Wall Street
area |
2013 September 11 | |
| Box: 4 | Item : 33 | Thirtieth Annual Spring Fair, Hippo Playground, Riverside Park |
2013 May 5 | |
| Box: 4 | Item : 34 | Town hall meeting about Museum of Natural History construction in Theodore Roosevelt
Park, Fourth Universalist Society |
2015 October 6 | |
| Box: 4 | Item : 35 | Question from the floor, lecture, St. Francis College, Brooklyn Heights |
2014 March 25 | |
| Box: 4 | Item : 36 | Riverside Park Conservancy Spring Gala, General Grant National Memorial |
2016 June 6 | |
| Box: 4 | Item : 37 | Parent Teacher Association (PTA) meeting, Upper West Side |
2013 April 10 | |
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