The 1970s had a unique vitality and aesthetic imprint unlike any other decade before or since. Jack Garofalo (1923-2004), an accomplished street photographer for Paris Match magazine, spent the summer of 1970 documenting the vibrant life of Harlem, a neighborhood that was undergoing an existential crisis at the time.
Harlem in the 1970s was undergoing an exodus, as anyone who could was moving to other neighborhoods in New York to escape the neighborhood’s poor infrastructure and crime. Some stayed because they couldn’t move out, while others stayed because they wanted to. But despite the difficulties, the neighborhood was an undeniably vibrant place.