The current exhibit of photography at the NYPL is a series of photos by an Irish photographer who catalogued the NYC subway and its riders in 1977 - and thank God he did. Photographs of the City at this time have the feel of anthropological studies in the alien nature of this urban environment. Other US cities had similar qualities to New York at this time - rampant crime, urban decay, wild expressions of individualism - but as with many other things in New York everything was bigger, louder and pressed right up against you. The subway then was the perfect metaphorical representation of everything that ailed the city all crammed in together. Pretty much everybody rode the subways those days, and what then passed for mundane daily life to those in the midst of it, is to us a fascinating glimpse into a failed civic experiment. For a photographer - especially one from a different culture - this must have felt like striking gold. One thing I noticed about the people on these trains grimly trying to connect the dots of their days, is their gaze. Generations before personal phones, the eyes of the commuters face outward into the world instead of down and into their devices. The faces look tentatively at us, suspiciously at the cameraman, and into some middle distance at their interior thoughts and worries - millions of intimacies forced to live side by side.

https://www.nypl.org/events/exhibitions/alen-macweeney