Abstract

As the decade of the 1960s drew to a close, Richard Quinney walked the streets of Manhattan with camera in hand, documenting the life of the city. For forty years, as he relocated from one place to another, the photographs he had taken in Manhattan went with him. After the events of September 11, 2001, the photographic images acquired a meaning and significance beyond anything he could have imagined. Once Upon an Island contains 175 photographs of Manhattan, including color photographs of the construction of the World Trade Center and black-and-white images that capture the experience of living on the island at the end of the 1960s. Like all photographs, these offer a stark reminder of the impermanence of all things; and yet at the same time, as artifacts they create an enduring record of a different time and place.