Through the Magpie Eye: The Block by Herb Goro

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28.05.2014

Two people sharing a light for their cigarettes by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire, from Herb Goro's The Block

The Block is a hard-hitting book-shaped slab of photojournalism straight off the litter-strewn streets of 1960s New York. Made by a social worker-turned-photographer by the name of Herb Goro, it tells the story of the inhabitants of an East Bronx slum through both photos and interviews with the residents. To be honest, it’s fairly depressing stuff, but you can’t deny the pictures are pretty good.

Old copies can be hunted down fairly cheaply over on Amazon, but for those who crave instant gratification I’ve taken the liberty of scanning in some of the standout shots.

Looking up between two tall brick buildings at a silhouetted figure leaping the gap between the rooftops

Two people running down an alley strewn with cans, paper and rubbish between brick buildings

Two people riding on the outside of a train on raised tracks, clinging to the end carriage above a street of parked cars

A tightly packed group posing for the camera in a doorway, one at the front in a striped top with arms folded

Two people perched on a dustbin on a littered pavement under an overhead railway, one in a check shirt drinking from a cup

Someone in a white vest on a rooftop waving a long pole with a rag on the end, pigeons circling over brick apartment blocks

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