JAMES AND KARLA MURRAY PHOTOGRAPHY

Thanks STRONG PHOTOGRAPHY!

http://strongphotography.wordpress.com/2009/03/13/photographer-of-the-day-313-james-and-karla-murray/

“For sentimental New Yorkers, these are tear-jerking times. Along with many overly posh things that most of us will survive just fine without, the bad economy threatens to flush away lots of fragile, old-school features of the city we love. James T. and Karla L. Murray document many of these in their excellent new coffee-table book, Store Front: The Disappearing Face of New York. Since they began their project eight years ago, fully one-third of their subjects are closed, and many more are certainly on the brink.

We picked out a large handful of our favorites for your viewing pleasure.” New York Magazine

“I started out being just a bomber…a throw-up kid…and then I got into being this style master guy.  And then I went back to being a throw-up guy again because that’s where the power of graffiti is, you see.  You can build all this greatness on it with your businesses and doing graphics and getting into the mainstream, but the true power of graffiti comes from hitting the streets and being an agitator.  I kind of got into this whole state of mind of using what power I have artistically in a more effective manner…because how many pieces can you possibly do?  After a while it just becomes dressing and dudes don’t pay attention to them.  They do…but they don’t…I mean people will get more pissed off if you go down the block and do twenty throw-ups and inside the throw-ups you say something like “Fuck Bush or Bomb Iraq” or whatever it is that you want to say.  People will take notice of that and then they’ll be scratching their heads and they’ll be mad at you but at the same time whatever it is that you said in there will stick in their heads and will stick in their thoughts.  They will be thinking about it.  So that’s where the power of graffiti comes in.  Like STAY HIGH and his stick figures and his “Voice of the Ghetto”…those little tags he used to do.  To this day man…40 years later people are still talking about it because he was the Voice of the Ghetto…that’s what he was.  It comes down to that…I think that’s where I got more comfortable…because it’s where I want to be.  I want to be more effective.”

EZO interview by James and Karla Murray (copywrite)

James and Karla Murray have published an interesting new photobook, Store Front: The Disappearing Face of New York [Ginkopress], that documents the beautiful history of traditional storefronts in New York City. This is a simple project that has so much life to it. Storefronts are like the texture and the heart of the life in the street. They do represent the sense of aesthetics in typography and consumerism that defines the look of cities and the life of the people. Now we need to see similar projects around the world so we can visually compare the cultures and traditions of main cities. That would be nice indeed.

You will find additional images here ( http://www.jamesandkarlamurray.com/JamesandKarlaMurraySTOREFRONT.html ) Once there take the opportunity to see other very nice portfolios at their website ( http://www.jamesandkarlamurray.com ).
http://exposurecompensation.com/2009/03/09/store-fronts-of-new-york-by-james-and-karla-murray/

MARCH 9, 2009 Personal storage
Twenty-first-century New Yorkers identify their city less by what’s there than by what used to be there. The stunning, color-saturated photos in Store Front — which documents street-level store facades in all five of the city’s boroughs — are big, beautiful reminders.

Jim and Karla Murray take us from Coney Island to Astoria, show us dive bars and furriers, and introduce us to the Yonah Shimmel Knish Bakery and the Lemon Ice King of Corona. The accompanying interviews are uniformly excellent. (“If you were a customer in 1948 and you came back today, it would look pretty much the same,” the manager of Manhattan’s 121-year old Katz’s Deli says.) And the photos themselves are battle flags in the war against corporate sameness.

http://www.veryshortlist.com/vsl/daily.cfm/review/1048/Book/store-front-disappearing-face-of-new-york/

STORE FRONT: The Disappearing Face Of New York at McNally Jackson Booksellers
We hope you can join us on Monday March 9th at 7PM to talk Mom and Pop shops.

Much thanks to HARRY ALLEN for the love and support. Much Respect, J&K

http://archive.wbai.org/allshows.php

MP3: look for NonFiction Friday March 6th 2009 2:00PM

Public Enemy’s famous Media Assassin, never one to believe the hype, talks STORE FRONT with us.

http://harryallen.info

No Future In Your Store Frontin’.

March 6th, 2009 — Architecture, NONFICTION, Photography

Husband-and-wife photography team James T. & Karla L. Murray give detailed, even affectionate, attention to the parts of New York City that most people merely dismiss as eyesores. In their earlier books, Broken Windows: Graffiti NYC and Burning New York, they recorded the craft of the aerosol artist, recording not only their masterworks but their words and intentions.

In their new volume, Store Front: The Disappearing Face of New York, they document the most vulnerable structures in the urban landscape’s topography: The small, typically family-owned, street-level proprietorship. Historically, notes the web site, not only did these shopkeepers add life and vitality to, and in real ways bind together, these neighborhoods. As well, the corner stores served as economic stepping stones for “New York’s early immigrant population, a wild mix of Irish, Germans, Jews, Italians, Poles, Eastern Europeans and later Hispanics and Chinese.”

D. D’Auria and Sons Pork Store is a typical example. Founded in 1938, set in the Belmont section of the Bronx—that borough’s Little Italy—it closed in 2007, three years after the above photo was made. Subsequently, and in an ironic reordering of community priorities, a cell phone store replaced it. Then, says Karla, “that went out of business last year, and now the space is empty.”

Add to the mix whale-like box stores, gentrification, the skyrocketing cost of NYC real estate, and a host of other potent, seemingly random forces, and what you have in these small businesses, literally, is a dying way of life. Meanwhile, Jim and Karla Murray race to visually preserve the last of their spaces, using their “trusty old Canon 35mm film camera,” itself now a relic, to capture the look, character, color, and texture of the places where our great city was, in many senses, built.

Jim & Karla Murray are guests today on NONFICTION, my WBAI-NY / 99.5 FM radio show, this afternoon, Friday, March 6, at 2 pm ET.

You can hear this thoughtful and creative couple’s ideas by tuning in at 2 pm. If you’re outside of the New York tri-state area, check out our stream on the web. If you miss the live show, dig into our archives for up to 90 days after broadcast. HARRY ALLEN

Also: From last night at TENEMENT MUSEUM:

Niki Russ Federman of RUSS & Daughters Appetizers talks at STORE FRONT vs The Tenement Museum

Thanks to Niki Russ Federman of RUSS & Daughters and Alice Goldberg of Mendel Goldberg Fabrics for helping to make last nights event a huge success. Thanks also to Mo Cohen, owner of Gingko press for stopping by and everyone who joined us to hear two forth generation female shop owners talk shop. Thanks also to the staff of the TENEMENT MUSEUM for hosting the event and making it a such a wonderful time.

Tonight 6:30PM FREE Featuring Niki Russ Federman of RUSS & Daughters and Brian Schames of Schames & Sons Paints, Alice Goldberg of Mendel Goldberg Fabrics.

From FLAVORPILL: flavorpill.com/newyork/events/2009/3/9/storef ront-the-dis…
Reading James T. and Karla L. Murray: Storefront: The Disappearing Face of New York
* Storefront: The Disappearing Face of New York

Back in September, James and Karla Murray mounted a show at the Brooklyn Historical Society of their photographs of mom-and-pop storefronts throughout Kings county. Now they’ve published a stunning book of their photographic documentation across all five boroughs. Besides just powerful pictures, the Murrays interview the proprietors of these solo stores about their dying profession, and how they persevere through threats from the encroaching big-boxes. Tonight, expect to hear these tales aloud, as well as some real NYC history; the reading includes a slide-show presentation of the Murrays’ photographs.

– Leah Taylor