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Stephen Harmon photographs

Call Number

PR 362

Date

1942, 1968-2017, inclusive

Creator

Harmon, Stephen F., 1943-

Extent

753 Megabytes (3009 digital images in JPG format)
1.5 Linear feet in 1 flat box and 1 flat file folder

Language of Materials

The collection is primarily photographic, but text content is generally English.

Abstract

The collection includes over 3200 color photographs, primarily in digital form, taken by photographer Stephen Harmon (1943-) of New York City's buildings from brownstones to skyscrapers, storefronts, parks, people, and street life in the 1970s-2017. Especially well-represented in the collection are images of Times Square of the 1970s, Manhattan's Upper West Side, Central Park, Greenwich Village, the New York subway transit system and the passengers who ride the city's trains, and the city's street life from quiet side streets to traffic and pedestrian congested avenues. Additional images will continue to be added to the collection.

Biographical / Historical

Stephen F. (Steve) Harmon is a now-retired attorney formerly of the Manhattan law firm Troutman Sanders and, most relevant for this collection, a lifelong photographer. Harmon was born in Brooklyn in 1943 and grew up in Queens. He graduated in 1964 with a B.A. from Queens College of the City University of New York and in 1967 with a LL.B from Brooklyn Law School. After residing for a time on Long Island, Harmon moved with his family back to New York City in 1978, living on the Upper West Side where he still resides with his wife, Cynthia. By the early 1980s, Harmon was a member of the SoHo Photo Gallery and exhibiting his work there and at other venues. His work is held by the Brooklyn Museum, Museum of the City of New York, New York Public Library, and other cultural and corporate collections in addition to the New-York Historical Society.

Arrangement

ORGANIZATION OF THE FINDING AID

For the purpose of presentation in this finding aid, the collection is described in nine series. The first eight series, designated with the prefix "D," are digital content and are organized broadly by topics that generally, and at points explicitly, follow Stephen Harmon's categorizations. The tenth series, designated with the prefix "P," includes photographic prints of various forms and subjects.

Series D.I. "Old Times Square" (1980s-1990s)

Series D.II. New York City Buildings, Parks and Other Cityscapes, prior to 2002 (1970s-2001)

Series D.III. New York City Buildings, Parks and Other Cityscapes, 2002 and later (2002-2017)

Series D.IV. "Street Portraits" (circa 1978-1988)

Series D.V. New York City "Street Show" (1995-2017)

Series D.VI. Subway Life (1980s-2017)

Series D.VII. Events (1968-2017)

Series D.VIII. Various Other Subjects (1970s-2017)

Series P.I. Photographic Prints (1942, 1970s-2011)

ORGANIZATION OF THE DIGITAL FILES

The digital files reflected in this finding aid were received by N-YHS in over 525 emails sent over the course of several years, from 2012-2017. Further, over 1000 emails and other transmissions received later have not yet been processed and will be added to the finding aid in the future. In part for this reason, the digital files are named, organized and stored in a chronological order (generally using date received) and not in accordance with the above series. For patrons requesting and receiving specific files, this difference will not matter. However, it will matter for patrons working more generally or with the entirety of the collection as they will need to use the chronological "digital folder" identifier, which uses a YYYYMMDD format, from the finding aid to navigate through the collection to locate specific images. The N-YHS Reference Librarian can provide any further guidance as needed.

Scope and Contents

The collection includes color photographs of New York City, primarily in digital format, taken by Stephen Harmon in the 1970s to 2017. (Many photographs in digital formats from this time period and later remain unprocessed, and will be added to the finding aid over time.) The photographs tend to center on either the built environment of the city or the people who interact with the city and its built environment on a daily basis, though there is overlap between these categories. A particularly good example of this overlap in the collection is the series of "subway life" photographs, which include images of New York City's subway trains, stations, and the passengers who use them, often as an essential element of their urban lives and livelihoods.

Harmon's earliest photographs date from the 1970s-1980s and include images of Times Square, the World Trade Center, and people and fashions of the time. The latest photographs date into the 2010s, and include the Santiago Calatrava-designed Oculus at the World Trade Center Transportation Hub, the Gay Pride Parade of 2015, and many others. Ranging across these decades, and especially well-represented in the photographs, are images of Manhattan's Upper West Side, Central Park, and Greenwich Village, as well as many other areas of New York City. Manhattan predominates the collection, but Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx also appear.

Harmon transmitted the digital photographs, which comprise the bulk of the collection, via email over a period of 8 years, from his RCN webmail account to a New-York Historical Society Gmail account. The digital photographs are in JPG format, both born-digital and digitized by Harmon from original physical formats. Digital photographs were either attached to or embedded in his email messages and downloaded individually to local storage. Harmon's emails often included essential context for the digital photos that frequently went well beyond basic facts like date or building name to include backstory, commentary about the subject, humorous captioning, artistic intent and focus, and other deeper context. Accordingly, with only a few exceptions, the contextual emails were saved as PDFs and are included in the collection with the digital photographs.

Access Restrictions

Open to qualified researchers in N-YHS's Reading Room by appointment only. To schedule an appointment, contact the Print Room Librarian at printroom@nyhistory.org.

The digital files can be made available on-line for viewing only. To arrange to receive a link to the desired photographs, contact the Print Room Librarian at printroom@nyhistory.org.

Use Restrictions

Taking images of documents from the library collections for reference purposes by using hand-held cameras and in accordance with the library's photography guidelines is encouraged. As an alternative, patrons may request up to 20 images per day from staff. Application to use images from this collection for publication should be made in writing to: Department of Rights and Reproductions, The New-York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West, New York, NY 10024-5194, rightsandrepro@nyhistory.org. Phone: (212) 873-3400 ext. 282.

Copyrights and other proprietary rights may subsist in individuals and entities other than the New-York Historical Society, in which case the patron is responsible for securing permission from those parties. For fuller information about rights and reproductions from N-YHS visit: www.nyhistory.org/about/rights-reproductions.

Preferred Citation

The collection should be cited as: Stephen Harmon photographs, PR 362, Department of Prints, Photographs, and Architectural Collections, New-York Historical Society.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Gift of the photographer, Stephen Harmon, at various times, primarily beginning in 2012 and continuing. Harmon's earliest gift was a set of eight photographic prints donated in 1983.

Accruals

This finding aid includes the photographs that have been processed to date by N-YHS. Many digital files have not yet been processed and this finding aid will be updated as that occurs over time. In addition, the collection continues to receive new accessions from the photographer.

Collection processed by

Larry Weimer

About this Guide

This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2023-09-05 11:21:41 -0400.
Using Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language: Finding aid written in English

Processing Information

The processing of Harmon's digital photographs have a complicated history. From 2012-July 2017, about 2900 photos were received from Harmon in about 450 emails directed to the curator of photographs' N-YHS Gmail account. A few of these, mostly from 2013, were downloaded to an N-YHS server, while the others remained in Gmail. In June 2017, a new Gmail account was created by N-YHS and all emails from 2012 and 2014-July 2017 were forwarded by the curator to this new account. From that account, in June-July 2017, intern Anna Baccaglini downloaded the photos and made PDFs of the emails, saving them to N-YHS's server. No further processing was done at that time. Harmon continued to send emails to the curator, who forwarded them to the new Gmail account. This continued until February 2020 when a new delivery mechanism was implemented.

In late 2020, processing of the digital files began on a piecemeal basis and is continuing. As of February 2021, processing was completed for emails/files received through October 2017, which included those previously downloaded by Anna Baccaglini and some additional files. These were organized and described by archivist Larry Weimer in this finding aid and transferred to permanent digital storage by digital archivist Margo Padilla. As additional files are processed this finding aid will be updated.

As a general matter, processing of the individual emails/images received from Harmon included the following steps: Downloading of the photographs from each email to storage; saving the emails as PDFs; changing default camera-generated filenames to filenames that maintained the relationship between the photographs and their related, contextualizing email; and describing each email/photos (or related set of emails/photos) within the appropriate series of the finding aid, with a digital identifier for access. Duplicate images were removed.

Repository

New-York Historical Society
New-York Historical Society
170 Central Park West
New York, NY 10024