STORE FRONT NYC: Photographs of the City’s Independent Shops, Past and Present with James and Karla Murray

James and Karla Murray speak about their newly published collection of popular and critically acclaimed photos that celebrate New York City’s unique history and culture—from long-disappeared icons to still-thriving favorite haunts. For decades they have been on a mission to document and preserve on film the various small shops of New York City—many of which are quickly disappearing—and a culture of authenticity that is hanging by just a thread. The book features glorious new reproductions of images from their past books as well as never-before published photos. Filled with diversity and character, these images honor destinations lost to rising rents and changing demographics. Together they comprise both a guidebook and a love letter to a city that never sleeps, and is always evolving.

James and Karla Murray are husband-and-wife architectural and interior photographers and multi-media artists based in New York City. For over twenty-five years they have focused their lens on the streetscape through portraits of storefronts and shop owners and have strived to capture moments of city life that often go undocumented but capture the spirit, energy and cultural diversity of individual neighborhoods. They made it their mission to thoroughly document unique ‘mom-and-pop’ stores when they began to notice the alarming rate at which the shops were disappearing.

Their critically acclaimed books include STORE FRONT NYC: Photographs of the City’s Independent Shops, Past and Present, Store Front: The Disappearing Face of New York, New York Nights, Store Front II- A History Preserved and Broken Windows-Graffiti NYC. The authors’ landmark 2008 book, Store Front, was cited in Bookforum‘s Dec/Jan 2015 issue as one of the “Exemplary Art Books From The Past Two Decades” and heralded as “One of the periods most successful New York books.” New York Nights was the winner of the prestigious New York Society Library’s 2012 New York City Book Award.