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Weegee's New York is a city wounded by the Great Depression, in the throes of unemployment and poverty, of crime, corruption, and prostitution.
Taken mostly at night and marked by the characteristically harsh, artificial light that cast telltale shadows on their subjects, these photographs of crime victims, homeless vagrants, petty thieves, and resolute policemen document the gritty reality of Weegee's world. The first news photographer permitted a police radio in his car. Weegee would race through Manhattan's streets after midnight, often beating the cops to the scene of the crime. The next morning his pictures would scream from the pages of the Daily News and the Daily Mirror. They still jump from the page today, with a restless immediacy and intense edginess
