This selection of Builder Levy’s photographs, spanning 1960 to 1980, captures moments of Brooklyn and its residents as the physical, political, and social landscape of the borough changed.

Levy presents his subjects engaging in every day of New York City, whether fighting for civil rights or socializing on the street. The images reveal a persistent conscience; formed from tacit connections between subject, streetscape, and photographer, they ask the viewer to live and work alongside them.
This exhibition is a collaboration between Brooklyn Historical Society and students from Pratt Institute.

Friday, April 26 – Sunday, August 11, 2019
BHS Pierrepont
128 Pierrepont Street
Brooklyn, NY 11201

About the Author

Builder Levy is one of those rare photographers whose work is at once social documentary, fine art and street photography, and his seamless approach across these genres is as evident as ever in “Humanity in the Streets” currently exhibiting at the Brooklyn Historical Society until August 11.

Levy has lived and worked in New York City for most of his life. Born in 1942, he earned a B.A. in Art from Brooklyn College in 1964, studying painting, art history, and photography, the latter with Walter Rosenblum, who would introduce Levy to members of the Photo League, a group founded in the 1930s that sought to marry art and social action in documentary photography.

After earning an MA in Art Education at New York University in 1966, Levy worked for 35 years as a New York City public school teacher of inner-city teens, which he credits with deepening his way of looking and instilling that same depth among his students.

Along the way, he also developed close friendships with Helen Levitt, Harlem Renaissance photographer Roy DeCarava, as well as Paul Strand, all of which did—and continue to—inform his evolution as a photographic artist.

“Humanity in the Streets” is a selection of images Levy made largely in Brooklyn from 1960 to 1980. A tumultuous social and political time, the exhibition comprises photographs from both important civil rights protests,
Offered in tandem with the exhibition is a formidable book by the same name published by Damiani.

For more on the fine-art exhibition:
brooklynhistory.org/exhibitions/the-photographs-of-builder-levy-humanity-in-the-streets/