Sean Wilentz: New york scenes-fred w. mc darrah

For more than 40 years starting in the late 1950s, Fred W. McDarrah, the staff photographer for New York's Village Voice, covered the city's downtown scenes, producing an unmatched and encyclopedic visual record of people, movements, and events. McDarrah frequented the bars, cafes, and galleries where writers, artists, and musicians gathered, and he was welcome in the apartments and lofts of the city's avant-garde cultural aristocracy. Through his lens, we see the legendary birth of ideas and attitudes that continue to shape the character and allure of New York today.