The Photo Times: Gritty 1980s New York City through the lens of renowned street photographer

By

Alex Greig

PUBLISHED:

17:34, 10 November 2013

|

UPDATED:

21:54, 10 November 2013

New York in the 1980s was an altogether different city from the safe,

clean (for the most part), cosmopolitan urban playground it is today. Photographer

Richard Sandler began taking pictures, which now tell a fascinating

story of a gritty, graffiti-strewn city that just 20 years later would

be in the thrall of gentrification.

‘You are recording your

time,’ says Sandler. ‘You are looking for trends.Â If you are in the

street, you see it. You see everything on the street.’

Sandler’s photographs of 1980′s New York and its denizens bring the grit and glamor of the Reagan era to the fore. These

days, commuters read Kindles or play with their iPhones on clean subway

carriages, but Sandler finds that New Yorkers are no longer his muse.

‘There

is nothing more boring, nothing more nondescript and vacant than a

person on a cell phone walking down the street. They seem to be out of

the game, people are walking around in bubbles,’ he says.

His incredible shots of the city during the Greed is Good era document a New York that has almost disappeared.

The streets of Manhattan: A suited man is captured on camera as he walks near Broadway and Wall Street, circa 1987

The argument: A man and woman stand on the street exchanging words on Fifth Avenue in 1984; their respective stances speak volumes

Life on the streets: A homeless woman stands bear overflowing trash on Fifth Ave in 1980

Subway subculture: Sandler took this shot,

Subway subculture: Sandler took this shot, ‘Hasid and Hipster,’ on a subway in 1990

New York state of mind: Two children stare curiously at a homeless man as they walk with their parents on 32nd Street in 1981

The shadow men: This amazing pictures captures rush hour at the Main Concourse of Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan in 1989

Ladies who lunch: Women stalk Manhattan

Ladies who lunch: Women stalk Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue clad in expensive fur coats in 1987

The stare: A woman applies make-up as she sits in the window of the Donnell Library in 1981 while another person stares at the photographer

Platform love: A couple surrounded canoodles on a busy subway platform as a train rushes by in 1985

Training day: A woman stands in the graffiti-covered carriage of the C train in 1985 as other commuters look on

The rate race:

The rate race: ‘Men and Briefcases’ shows rush hour at 57th Street as suited men head to work in 1980

Cigarette break: A woman puffs a cigarette in the days before

Cigarette break: A woman puffs a cigarette in the days before ‘No smoking within 25 feet’ signs on Madison Avenue in 1982

Domino effect: Three sleeping children slump, one leaning on the arm of a young woman, as their mother tries to wake them on the R train in 1982

Domino effect: Three sleeping children slump against their carer as another woman who was not with the children tries to protect them from Sandler’s lens in 1982

‘Mortality and a Cherry Coke’: Sandler took this picture of a little boy openly staring at an elderly woman on Fifth Avenue

Rally the troops: A moment is captured at a political convention for Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale in 1980

Short shorts: Two women walk together on 34th Street in 1980, one clad in extremely brief pants and a sweatband

Bigotry: A man speaks ay an anti-gay demonstration on Sixth Avenue in 1989. New York legalized gay marriage in 2011

Tunnel vision: A commuter rides the subway, oblivious to the moment being captured on film in 1983 by Sandler

Veiled: This noir-ish shot was taken outside Van Cleef on Manhattan

Veiled: This noir-ish shot was taken outside Van Cleef on Manhattan’s 57th Street

Steely stare: A woman wearing a rain hat peers distrustfully at the camera lens as she stands in a doorway on Fifth Avenue in 1984

The terminal: Sandler shot the comings and goings at TWA Terminal at John F Kennedy Airport in 1978

Snapped: A police officer is caught mid-movement by Sandler in this shot called

Snapped: A police officer is caught mid-movement by Sandler in this shot called ‘True You Found it’ taken in 1982

Soho nannies and their charges: Now full of designer stores and expensive cupcake bakeries, back in the 1980s was a thriving artistic community

Tagged: A woman looks up from a subway car so covered in graffiti it

Tagged: A woman looks up from a subway car so covered in graffiti it’s almost more paint than wall in 1984

‘Subway Noir’: This black-and-white image shows a man reading the paper in a grey and grim-looking subway carriage

By sea: Inside the women

By sea: Inside the women’s room on the Staten Island Ferry in 1978, Sandler captured a woman slumps in front of the mirror

Stealing kisses: A couple are perfectly framed by the subway door

Stealing kisses: A couple are perfectly framed by the subway door’s splintered window in this shot taken in 1987

Above it all: A very tall man towers over other New Yorkers who stare in awe on Fifth Avenue in 1987

Golden age: The late 1970s and 80s signaled the beginnings of street art as we know it, with subways like this one in 1986 covered in tags by illicit painters