“I started with the Subway series in 1946 and would occasionally shoot in Penn Station until 1958 when I did it full time. I loved the place and what was happening there. It was a spacious and dramatic arena where people in the art of traveling went through a mixture of excitement, a silent patience for waiting and an honest fatigue. My fellow human beings are my main subject matter. When they travel, people are “on the big stage” so to speak. At heart my life’s work with the camera is to interpret the world around me through my own personal vision."
~ Louis Stettner
(1922-2016)
Stettner divided most of his creative life between New York and Paris. Brooklyn made him who he was, but Paris made him into the poet he became. It was a unique honour to visit Stettner in France. He was a true original—tough and combative on the outside, but a gentle soul on the inside. Stettner was a big bear of a man, almost biblical in appearance. The value of this image is increased exponentially by the fact that the original Penn Station is now just a memory. A moving image of a New York past.