IN THE ALLEYS Kids in the Shadow Of The Capitol - Softcover

Laura Goldstein

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1560986638 ISBN 13: 9781560986638

Publisher: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995

Synopsis

The labyrinthine inhabited alleys of Southwest Washington, D.C., were considered shameful for their proximity to the Capitol dome. Interspersed with the reminiscences of more than 20 people who grew up in and near the alleys, Frankel's photographs evoke a time when even the worst living conditions were alleviated by the "extended families" each neighborhood formed.

About this title

From Booklist:

In 1943^-44, Frankel, then a young Washington, D.C., journalist, explored the city with his camera and accidentally stumbled into the city's dense southwest slums--an embarrassment to everything Washington stood for--that were erased by urban renewal in the 1950s. Living conditions were deplorable, yet according to former residents quoted in this book, the southwest alleys resembled a small Southern town in which everybody looked after one another, and these images accordingly resound with heartwarming vitality as well as appalling poverty. Frankel eventually chose social work as a profession in which he could find security and do some good, but not before he had made a large body of photographs of the alleys. A few were shown in exhibitions and books in the 1940s, but no substantial collection was made before this book, completed in the year Frankel died. Gretchen Garner

About this edition

• Publisher: Smithsonian Institution Press
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 1560986638
• ISBN 13: 9781560986638
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 120