The Destruction of Lower Manhattan

New York: The Macmillan Company, 1969. First American Edition. First Printing. Quarto. 28cm. Publisher's black cloth titled in silver gilt to spine and front board. Dustjacket. 75pp. [each numbered & captioned page faces a full page unnumbered plate]. Light wear and sunning to the edges and spine ends, a strong and solid copy; internally clean, Inscribed by Lyon to the dedication page "In Memory of Jade, Danny Lyon, Nov 2005"; in a sold dustjacket with some wear and scratching of the laminate, shallow chipping to the spine ends, and a couple of closed tears. A very good copy with some wear, uncommon signed.

Lyon returned to New York in (truncated) 1969 after his work in Texas and the South with the SNCC, and lived for a while with Robert Frank (of "The Americans" fame). During his stay Lyon was commissioned by the New York State Council of Arts to cover the demolition of a number of landmark buildings (including old Penn Station). Lyon's work was notably instrumental in the development of the landmarks preservation movement; "The Destruction of Lower Manhattan is a historical record of a fast disappearing scene, and a beautiful portrait of buildings that we will never see again; but in a way it is also a portrait of the people who lived there, of empty rooms with children's paintings, furniture, stairwells, walls, windows, panelings."[From the opening blurb]. (Inventory #: 85386)