City Lore, an organization that works to preserve and foster NYC’s grassroots cultures and heritage is kicking off their 40th year with a show at their Lower East Side gallery featuring two down icons known for documenting the streets of the the city for many decades – Martha Cooper and Clayton Patterson. The show gathers iconic and rarely seen images spanning the late 1970s through the 2000s, capturing the grit, creativity, and community resilience of the Lower East Side.
They write: “Widely celebrated for their deep engagement with the city’s streets and subcultures, Martha Cooper and Clayton Patterson have each shaped how the world sees New York. Through distinct yet complementary perspectives, Cooper and Patterson, together with his partner, Elsa Rensaa, have dedicated their lives to recording the human stories that animate the city’s streets. Their photographs capture a neighborhood that became a global symbol of artistic resistance and grassroots resilience.
Cooper’s attentive, human-centered images of youth culture, street art, hip-hop, cultural traditions, and neighborhood life stand as enduring records of ingenuity and play. Patterson’s raw, uncompromising documentation of activism, underground art, and the everyday drama of tenement blocks offers a counter-archive to official histories. Together, their perspectives reveal the LES as a crucible of both community-preservation and innovation at the frontlines of urban change.”
The show is on view at City Lore (56 E. 1st St.) from October 21, 2025 through February 1, 2026, Saturdays and Sundays, 12:00 – 6:00 pm and by appointment.
