Vanishing New York City Storefronts

Store Front provides an irreplaceable window to the rich cultural experience of New York City as seen through its neighborhood shops. These stores have the city’s history etched in their facades. They tirelessly serve their community, sustaining a neighborhood’s diverse nature and ethnic background, in a city with an unmercifully fast pace and seemingly insatiable need for change. Each is as unique as the customers they serve and have at their heart, owners who share a commitment to provide a unique service and in turn cement a neighborhood’s foundation. Through revealing interviews with shop owners and its unprecedented oversize images, Store Front scours the city and provides an indispensable guide to the city’s timeworn shops. From humble neighborhood stores tucked away on narrow side streets to well-known institutions on historic avenues, anyone with a love of New York City will cherish being given a visual walking tour far beyond the scope of even the most thorough visitor or observant resident. James and Karla Murray are professional photographers and authors who specialize in urban and low-light photography using both film and digital formats. Their work is housed in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage in Washington, D.C. and the New York Public Library. You can read James and Karla's blog here. My favorite is the furrier - shhhh, I 'used' to take my full-length (real) wolf coat to cold storage like this every year. See the beauty in this nostalgic and incredibly familiar-feeling slideshow.