id: 169396 accession number: 2011.246 share license status: Copyrighted url: https://clevelandart.org/art/2011.246 updated: 2023-03-22 03:04:48.493000 The Destruction of Lower Manhattan: 100 Gold Street Seen from the Remains of the Tribune Building, 1966–67. Danny Lyon (American, 1942-). Gelatin silver print; image: 25 x 25 cm (9 13/16 x 9 13/16 in.); paper: 34.5 x 27.8 cm (13 9/16 x 10 15/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of George Stephanopoulos 2011.246 title: 100 Gold Street Seen from the Remains of the Tribune Building title in original language: series: The Destruction of Lower Manhattan series in original language: creation date: 1966–67 creation date earliest: 1966 creation date latest: 1967 current location: creditline: Gift of George Stephanopoulos copyright: --- culture: America, 20th century technique: gelatin silver print department: Photography collection: PH - American 1951-Present type: Photograph find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * Danny Lyon (American, 1942-) - artist Danny Lyon American, 1942- Danny Lyon (born in Brooklyn) came to attention in the 1960s as a social documentary photographer whose sympathies with his subjects often grew from personal involvement in their causes. While studying history at the University of Chicago (B.A., 1963), he joined the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and served as the group's photographer. Since 1967 he has been an associate for the magnum photo agency and made extensive photo essays in the late 1960s-70s on the civil rights movement (The Movement, 1964), the Chicago Outlaws Motorcycle Club, of which he was a member (The Bikeriders, 1968), the demolition of historic 19th-century buildings in New York City (The Destruction of Lower Manhattan, 1969), and Texas prisons (Conversations with the Dead, 1971). For that series, Lyon included with his black-and-white photographs excerpts from handwritten letters, drawings, police reports, and telegrams. In 1977 the U.S. Justice Department used his images in a landmark legal case (Ruiz vs. Estelle) to improve conditions in prisons throughout Texas. Since the 1980s, Lyon has traveled to Colombia to photograph street children and prostitutes (The Paper Negative, 1980) and to Haiti to cover the events leading up to the collapse of the Duvalier regime in 1986. His own family has also become a continued subject of his work. Parallel to his photography, Lyon has made numerous films that are shown regularly in universities across the United States: Social Sciences 127 (1969), Llanito (1971), El Mojado (1973), Los Niños Abandonados (1975), Dear Mark (1975-80), Little Boy (1977), Willie (1986-87), and Media Man (c. 1993). He has published his own works since 1988 under the imprint Bleak Beauty Books, in collaboration with his wife, Nancy Lyon, and Michael Hausman. Lyon has also taught nonfiction film at the State University of New York at Buffalo (1986) and at Columbia University (1987-90). Among his honors are fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (1969, 1979) and the Rockefeller Foundation (1990). He has had one-person exhibitions at the Art Institute of Chicago (1966, 1969), the Newport Harbor Art Museum in California (1973), and the Philadelphia Museum of Art (1982). In 1991 a retrospective, Danny Lyon Photo Film, with accompanying catalogue, traveled internationally. Lyon lives in Clintondale, New York. A.W. --- measurements: Image: 25 x 25 cm (9 13/16 x 9 13/16 in.); Paper: 34.5 x 27.8 cm (13 9/16 x 10 15/16 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: inscription: Signed, titled and dated on verso artist's "Bleak Beauty" stamp also on verso translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: Danny Lyon: The Destruction of Lower Manhattan opening date: 2018-05-19T04:00:00 Danny Lyon: The Destruction of Lower Manhattan. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 19-October 7, 2018). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS --- PROVENANCE George Stephanopoulos date: footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: digital description: wall description: In his book The Destruction of Lower Manhattan, Lyon relates that 100 Gold Street, an architectural experiment built in 1926, was “the first reinforced concrete structure of its height built and demolished in New York.” In the late 1960s, it was replaced with a nine-story, privately held office building that is now owned by the city and houses its Department of Housing Preservation and Development. Lyon shot this image from the New York Tribune building, which was under demolition. That 18-story structure, proposed by some historians as the earliest skyscraper, was the first high-rise served by an elevator. --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS --- IMAGES