Hookers!
by Philip Goutell

© 2023 Philip Goutell

It was a while back but I must have had some money at the time. I bought a condo on the West Side of Manhattan, not far from our office. It had a large terrace.

I soon discovered I was living in a lively neighborhood, especially at night. Women were active on the street; men in cars cruised by to check them out. Sometimes they stopped and the women got into their cars and they parked for a short while. I had never before seen anything like it.

At the time I was involved in photography, shooting both for advertising and for my own pleasure. I shot one of our best ads in the local Burger King, at the end of the block. Walking in the neighborhood I shot various picture by day and by evening but I became absolutely fascinated by what was going on late at night.

I had a 500mm cat lens for my Nikon. This type of lens has only a single aperture setting but it's compact and easy to balance. Although at night I had to use a slow shutter setting and push the Ektachrome two stops, on a tripod it gave me sharp images of that which was not in motion and some interesting blurs of that which was. I found myself out on my terrace, with camera and tripod, night after night, "documenting" the activity on the street below.

My condo was smack dab at the intersection of streets leading to the Lincoln Tunnel so, in the late evening, motorists returning to New Jersey took much notice of the activity and sometimes became participants. In time I accumulated a large collection of color slides, all taken at night. Many were bland but a good number showed interesting light patterns, particularly on rainy nights: traffic lights, car tail lights, streetlights and, amidst the color patterns, the woman in their work clothes which never changed, regardless of the season.

The old factory building I was living in was next to what had once been an alimony jail. It now housed a number of artists, photographers, designers and other creative types. One year one of the artists organized an open house art show. I'm not sure how she promoted it but I assumed the plan was to attract gallery reps and reviewers. Photographers were invited to join the fun.

At the time I had money and a good relationship with a photo lab that could make exhibition prints. There is an interesting back story here. I heard this from a friend who was trying to organize the lab for the Teamsters. The story was noddingly confirmed by another acquaintance who once worked there and had processed my wedding pictures.

The story goes that the owners had received a contract from NASA to process film brought back by astronauts. Short on money for the equipment they needed, they became involved with mobsters.

My Teamster friend told me how, when he was leading a picket line and took a break, he would go to a certain diner in the neighborhood, in the fact the only diner in that neighborhood. One day he was called "downtown" by the Feds who were investigating a possible relationship between the mob and the Teamsters. He was informed he had been surveiled sitting in a diner booth next to a booth occupied by a known underworld figure. It caught him completely by surprise. He had to explain why he and this other person were at the same diner at the same time. The answer of course was that it was the only diner in the neighborhood. Until that moment I don't think he had a clue concerning any connection between the lab and the mob. (I heard later that the mob had pulled out and the lab was "legit" again.) This was all just street talk.

For the art show I took some selections from my street scenes to the lab and had display prints made: some 4 x 6 feet; others 24 x 36 inches, all mounted on Masonite supported by box frames. Then I set to work in my studio making a simple but attractive display. I wasn't out to sell what I had produced; I just wanted the pleasure of participating in the show.

The day of the exhibit produced a good number of people touring the building, going from floor to floor, studio to studio, using both the stairs and the elevator. For some I think it was just a chance to see the insides of a building that looked interesting from the outside with a large mural painted on an outer wall, stretching for several floors.

The woman who organized the event must have made up a flier showing which studios were participating and what each offered. Those who came for the show were mostly men and women in their thirties or perhaps a bit older. Many were couples.

My studio door was open. I don't recall whether or not I offered refreshments. What I do recall is that the woman, upon recognizing the subject matter of the images, fell into silence and deep thought, their brains struggling how to process the message conveyed by what their eyes were seeing. I could almost see them looking for a correct moral stance, a correct interpretation and purpose for these pictures and why they had been taken and why they were now on display. Did these large, blatant images represent sympathy for exploited women or were they themselves exploitation?

The men with them took no time to ponder. They looked, grinned, and announced for anyone clueless enough not to understand ... "Hookers!"