Police Batons, Broken Turnstiles, and Strike Demonstrations: Urban Protest and Crowd Control in New York City and Washington, D.C., Steve Rose's Archive of 19 Large Photographs circa 1969–1971

NYC Strike

Photograph

Steve Rose's photographic coverage of demonstrations, strike activity, broadcast spaces, and police control in New York City and Washington, D.C., circa 1969–1971, with dissent moving through street assembly, underground and movement media, institutional protest, and municipal enforcement. Rose, active in New York documentary photography during the early 1970s, photographed activists such as Abbie Hoffman, crowds, radio workers, and police at campuses, transit sites, and city streets where public speech met managed space. These photographs of early 1970s New York and D.C. activism span police violence, organizers gathering outside major institutions, broadcasters at consoles and microphones, and school protest and street demonstration, aligned with the same documentary practice that recorded Young Lords and Gay Liberation actions in the city.

Photo archive of 19 Large silver gelatin photographs, each 8 x 10 inches, New York City and Washington, D.C., circa 1969–1971. The most confrontational scenes place police with raised batons inside a damaged transit interior, with shattered or cracked glass and turnstiles marked "NOT FOR EXIT" locating the violence inside a controlled urban access point rather than an open street. Riot helmets, gas masks, clubs, broken barriers, and confined stair and platform space place crowd control, transit management, and physical force together during moments of unrest. In this group, the violent scenes are central evidence of municipal authority enforcing movement and restricting public assembly in New York at the turn of the 1970s. Contents include schoolchildren descending an interior stair with placards reading "A LITTLE RADIATION IS NO GOOD FOR CHILDREN AND OTHER PEOPLE" and "NO NO NO"; a street protester holding a hand-lettered sign reading "Strike! Support the Manifesto"; a crowd assembled outside the Interchurch Center, one sign reading "Fight White Racism Join Us"; a woman labeled "Beulah," likely a college student impersonating activist Beulah Sanders, addressing a large outdoor gathering; and a dense overhead crowd view made from an elevated vantage point. Another group centers on urban control points and police presence, including subway turnstiles marked "NOT FOR EXIT," officers in helmets and gas masks advancing with batons, a handwritten wall slogan reading "NO MORE FARE" above a tiled stair, and a verso note identifying one image as "grand central subway control booth." Additional prints include a radio or news studio with a control console, a broadcaster wearing headphones at a microphone, a silhouetted operator in a booth, and a saxophonist performing before an audience. Several versos bear Steve Rose photographer stamps, signatures, a Nancy Palmer Photo Agency stamp crediting Rose, the note "view from president's terrace," and dated notations including "Steve Rose / Newsreel 6-9-69." One image is duplicated.

The archive contains antiwar activism, childcare and school protest, strike support, racial justice organizing, broadcast work, and police intervention inside the same metropolitan circuit. Press-marked versos, agency stamps, location notes, and dated inscriptions record the working infrastructure through which Rose's images moved as news and movement documentation. Light handling wear, minor curling, scattered verso toning and staining, editorial stamps and manuscript notations throughout; one duplicate image present. Police violence, crowd control, and organized dissent intersect inside transit interiors, institutional exteriors, broadcast studios, and city streets in New York City and Washington, D.C.

Item #23205

Price: $1,350.00