On the Waterfront, in photographs

Above: Diane Cook’s dreamy “Little Red Lighthouse, Fort Washington Park, Manhattan, 2002”

You can see the picture above and lots of other impossibly good-looking pictures at the Museum of the City of New York‘s new show The Edge of New York: Waterfront Photographs. The exhibition features an array of images from all eras of New York photography, including photos from my very favorite city photog Berenice Abbott.

And if you’re in the museum mode this week, you should also try a new show at the New York Historical Society on controversial Kansan radical John Brown. The show John Brown: The Abolitionist and His Legacy marks the 150th anniversary of Brown’s failed raid at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, an event often seen as the opening salvo for the Civil War. It’s not New York City specific necessarily, although 19th century abolition activists and intellectuals in the city considered Brown a hero of sorts. And he also owned a farm in Lake Placid, New York; you can still visit the site today and see his gravesite there.

I have not yet seen the NYHS show but expect to this weekend, especially because, as my own personal family lore goes, I am a distant relative of John Brown. Personally, I don’t see the resemblance.