Weegee, Standing By
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
arts Essay Weegee, Standing By Jason Hill Department of Art History, University of Delaware, 318 Old College, Newark, DE 19716, USA; [email protected] Received: 27 May 2019; Accepted: 16 July 2019; Published: 26 August 2019 Abstract: Informed by an interesting recent infrastructuralist turn in media studies and by an expanding sense among historians and theorists of photography of what might properly delimit the photographer’s toolkit, this essay considers aspects of the photography of Weegee, as these can be observed to issue from that photographer’s deep professional embeddedness in specific media-infrastructural conditions of the place and time he most productively inhabited: New York City in the early 1940s. This essay prompts questions (and hazards some answers) concerning the stakes of Weegee’s press-photographic engagements with the material, electronic, and atmospheric infrastructures of wartime dairy delivery, underground transport, and, most urgently, policing, so to better understand the fit of his pictures to the world they so cleverly described. Keywords: Weegee; photography; infrastructure; police; media; visual culture Imagine that the world can be likened to an enormous set of broadcasting stations, each one emitting its signal or its programme at its proper wavelength ::: The emission is continuous, corresponding to the truism that something is always happening ::: The set of ::: events, then, is like the cacophony of sound one gets by scanning the dial of one’s radio receiver ::: Since we cannot register everything we have to select, and the question is what will strike our attention? (Galtung and Ruge [1965] 1988) 1. Milk City One early one morning in January 1943, the New York City newspaper photographer Weegee positioned himself across the street from Dairy King at 139 Havemeyer St. in Brooklyn and he photographed, within a fixed frame, every truck that stopped between 07:00 and 10:00 to deliver cartons and bottles of milk there (Figure1). To what end? This slow and watchful procedure yielded six pictures, published by the local tabloid daily PM on January 10, in a captioned grid stacked three upon three. These pictures varied only in the make of trucks and in the company logos they bear, and in the captions’ reported details of time and of number of bottles or cartons delivered: “Borden delivers 76”; “Sunnydale 100 bottles of cream,” and so on. Here was no murder or fire or wreck or brawl, and not even any obvious human interest, such as we have come to expect of this photographer in his later Naked City moment.1 The news was rather more prosaic: a distant regulatory tweak had led to a spike in local milk prices. In their wake, the Agriculture Department had identified an inefficiency and prescribed its cost-saving corrective: to offset a sudden 2¢ jump in the price of a quart of milk, it would be necessary to eliminate the costly “duplication of [delivery] routes by milk companies,” whereby some half-dozen different vendors, as Weegee so dutifully chronicled, might deliver to a single shop on a single day at great and needless expense in “tires and gasoline” (Beichman and Weegee 1943, p. 5). The remedy was to be these deliveries’ rotation, so that different dairies served different shops on different days, obviating the daily retreading of 1 Weegee, a pioneer in local news photography since the late 1930s, made his name as a photographer at PM between 1940 and 1944, before securing national renown as the author of the 1945 book Naked City, which compiled a selection of his work from PM and other papers. See (Lee and Meyers 2008) and (Bonanos 2018). Arts 2019, 8, 108; doi:10.3390/arts8030108 www.mdpi.com/journal/arts Arts 2019, 8, x FOR PEER REVIEW 2 of 21 gasoline”. (Beichman and Weegee 1943, p. 5). The remedy was to be these deliveries’ rotation, so that different dairies served different shops on different days, obviating the daily retreading of routes. Of the proposed fix, Dairy King’s proprietor, Hyman Linkoffsky, held a balanced view: “customers mightn’t like the idea of being forced to take a brand they were unaccustomed to … But it’s a war [on] … and I don’t think it would be too much of a sacrifice. After all, milk is milk”. Arts 2019If we, 8, 108 might take routine civil disturbance to be Weegee’s news beat, here was a modest2 of 20if potentially osteoporotic one newly triggered by an aggravated old redundancy in milk delivery routes. On this occasion Weegee had been charged by editors not with picturing sensational urban routes.mayhem Of (as the we proposed might fix,expect) Dairy but King’s instead proprietor, with the Hyman compelling Linkoffsky, visualization held a balanced of a view:markedly “customers subtle mightn’tdistribution like inefficiency the idea of being operating forced just to take below a brand the th theyreshold were unaccustomedof routine visibility: to ::: Buta blip it’s in a warthe [on]optical::: andwhite I don’tnoise think of metropolitan it would be life. too much of a sacrifice. After all, milk is milk”. Figure 1. ArnoldArnold Beichman and Weegee. “One of the ‘Frills’ ‘Frills’ That That Make Milk Cost You More”, PM, 10 January 1943. Image courtesy of the Inte Internationalrnational Center of Photography. IfSuch we was might pictorial take routinenewsgathering civil disturbance on the local to beat be Weegee’sin wartime, news at least beat, in herethe pages was of a modestWeegee’s if potentiallyprincipal journalistic osteoporotic gig, one PM newly, which triggered dedicated by an at aggravated least as much old redundancy ink to disturbances in milk delivery in the routes. local Oneconomy this occasion as it did Weegee to those had of criminal been charged violence, by editorsnational not poli withtics, picturing and global sensational war.2 To urbanwit, and mayhem to stay (aswith we milk might for expect)a moment: but six instead days withlater theWeegee’s compelling colleague visualization at PM, Ad of Reinhardt, a markedly published subtle distribution a cartoon ineaccompanyingfficiency operating Beichman’s just below reporting the threshold on the farm of routine bloc mechanisms visibility: a blipaffecting in the the optical point-of-sale white noise price of metropolitanspike at issue. life. His picture: a robber baron in overalls and top hat hoisting milk and cow up and out of reachSuch of was growing pictorial children newsgathering by rope and on the pulley local (Figure beat in 2) wartime, (Beichman at least and in Reinhardt the pages 1942, of Weegee’s p. 18). principalMilk economy journalistic for PM gig, wasPM ,no which passing dedicated concern. at least Two as full much year inks before, to disturbances for the edition in the local of 5 economyJanuary as1941, it did an tounnamed those of criminalPM photographer violence, national (perhaps politics, Weegee, and more global lik war.ely2 not),To wit, again and on to stayassignment with milk with for aBeichman, moment: set six daysthe template later Weegee’s for Weegee’s colleague later at PM,feature,Ad Reinhardt,this time capturing, published between a cartoon 06:00 accompanying and 10:00, Beichman’sno fewer than reporting ten dairy on trucks the farm belo blocnging mechanisms to seven distinct affecting vendors, the point-of-sale all pictured price delivering spike at to issue. the F&R His picture:Butter and a robber Egg Market baron inat overalls35 Suffolk and St. top in Manhattan hat hoisting (Figure milk and 3) (Beichman cow up and et out al. of1942, reach p. 14). of growing3 In the childrenweeks just by after rope Pearl and pulley Harbor, (Figure the Department2) (Beichman of and Markets, Reinhardt Beichman 1942, p.reports, 18). Milk had economy observed for a potentialPM was noboon passing to milk concern. consumers Two full in yearsthe new before, wartime for the rationing edition of of 5 Januaryrubber, 1941,a material an unnamed deemedPM morephotographer urgently (perhapsessential Weegee,to war moremobilization likely not), than again to ondomestic assignment commerce. with Beichman, Fewer tires set the for template milk trucks for Weegee’s would later feature, this time capturing, between 06:00 and 10:00, no fewer than ten dairy trucks belonging to seven2 On distinctPM more vendors, broadly, see all Paul pictured Milkman, delivering PM: A toNew the Deal F&R in Journalism Butter and (New Egg Brunswick: Market at Rutgers, 35 Suffolk 1997), St. and in ManhattanJason E. Hill, (Figure Artist3) (asBeichman Reporter: Weegee, and unnamed Ad Reinhardt, photographer and the PM 1942 News, p. Picture 14). 3 (Oakland:In the weeks California, just after 2018). Pearl Harbor,3 The geography the Department of milk of takes Markets, its place Beichman in the reports,history hadof the observed illustrated a potential press in boonNew toYork milk City. consumers For one in theimportant, new wartime earlier rationingchapter, see of (Pearson rubber, a1990). material deemed more urgently essential to war mobilization 2 On PM more broadly, see Paul Milkman, PM: A New Deal in Journalism (New Brunswick: Rutgers, 1997), and Jason E. Hill, Artist as Reporter: Weegee, Ad Reinhardt, and the PM News Picture (Oakland: California, 2018). 3 The geography of milk takes its place in the history of the illustrated press in New York City. For one important, earlier chapter, see (Pearson 1990). Arts 2019, 8, 108 3 of 20 Arts 2019, 8, x FOR PEER REVIEW 3 of 21 than toArts domestic 2019, 8, x FOR commerce. PEER REVIEW Fewer tires for milk trucks would necessitate a laissez-faire reduction3 of 21 in the samenecessitate kind of delivery a laissez-faire inefficiencies reduction Weegee in the andsame Beichman kind of deliv inventoriedery inefficiencies two year Weegee later. Atand play Beichman here, again, are theinventoried low-visibility two year technics later.