Harry Dubin at Work in Old New York

Jeff Kisseloff interviewed grocer Harry Dubin about an article written about him in 1947, but then found something much more interesting about Dubin.

I picked up the album and opened it, and my eyes nearly jumped out of my head. Inside were some 30 color photographs taken in and around the city in the 1940s. I had never seen such vibrant photos of the city in those years. In fact, I had never seen any color photos of the city in those years, yet here they were. It was such an interesting collection. Each of the pictures depicted a man in uniform intently doing his job, whether it was a street sweeper, gas station attendant or hansom cab driver. When I looked at them twice, I realized something, all of them were Harry!

Needless to say, while our subsequent interview was wonderful, the album left me speechless in delight. These were the most evocative photographs of old New York I had ever seen. Harry explained that all of them were taken by his son Ronald, who was then a teenager, after Harry managed to convince each worker to change clothes with him in an alley and let Harry do his job for a few minutes so the picture could be taken.

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