Text and photographs by Stephen Harmon
By now West Side Rag readers know how much I loved taking candid photos and permission portraits of people I saw and met on the Upper West Side in those vanished days of the 1970s and 80s. Here is another group.
I hope you find something to enjoy
Stephen Harmon is a longtime Upper West Sider, a retired lawyer, and a world-class photographer whose work is on display in many of the city’s museums, including The Museum of the City of New York, The Brooklyn Museum, New York Historical, and The New York Public Library.
Check out our audio interview with Stephen Harmon on Rag Radio — HERE.
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The fifth photo (man & his son) has the negative-flipped!
Excellent group of photos capturing native New Yorkers on the streets. Exactly why we love the streets of our city and the denizens on our streets and sidewalks.
Thank you!!!
The black and white photo is an excellent composition and I also like the photo of the man combing his hair. Reflection photos can be so interesting. Thanks for these photos. I am amazed at the quantity of photos you took/developed.
Much appreciated.
Adding to the delight of this photo is the reflection of the man in the red shirt making a similar hand-to-head gesture (looks like he may be wiping his forehead).
Thank you! Lucky.
I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t notice that despite it being in the middle of the frame. Very clever indeed – or a happy accident!
Very kind words! Thanks.
Wonderful — thank you again!
Thank you!
I look forward to seeing these photos. Thank you!
Thank you!
I love these posts! Keep them coming!
Thanks!!
Great collection as always — thanks!
And also a wonderful reminder of what the West Side looked like without scaffolding. Remember??
Kind words!
A positive comment, followed by a negative one. No good deed goes unpunished.
I look forward to these every week. Several this week are some of the most stunning you’ve shared. I hope your photographs have been widely distributed and you’ve also enjoyed some financial success from them, as well.
Thanks so much!!
These are fantastic – thank you for sharing. I believe I had both of those skirts in picture 1 …one might still be in my closet!
Thank you!!
There’s a chance the woman in the excellent hat in the first photo is my now deceased mother. Do you have any records of what year you took that photo?
I don’t have a specific date. Sorry. I think some time from 1978 to 1985.
I love these and look forward to them. I keep looking for someone I know from the 70s and 80s, or old shots of me, roaming the west side in our youthful stride, or an elderly neighbor whom I knew from 82nd St. It all brings back such wonderful memories. Thanks for publishing these, they are great!
Thank you!!
Oh, that last shot from the back of the two elderly women is pure poetry. Says so much with so little. Thank you.
Such kind words! Thanks.
Agree. Magnificent photo.
Appreciate that!!
Hey, LLUWS, did I solve your mystery of Gladys the Goose last week?
No! I never saw your reply! Could you maybe resend it? Or reply again? Thank you!
This should lead you straight to it: https://www.westsiderag.com/2025/07/10/throwback-thursday-memories-of-the-upper-west-side-in-the-1970s-and-80s#comment-579926
The comment was admittedly rather slow to post, perhaps having been routed through Tuva Tuva and Neptune along the way.
Women with hats with flowers! Another fabulous batch of memories!
Glad you like them!
Brings back the era beautifully—a reminder that then tattoos were mostly reserved for a tougher type person and weren’t on every grandma in the grocery store and everyone else too
Thank you!
Looks like it smells bad.
Not as bad as a nail salon.
What resonates with me is how many of the subjects are projecting tough guy/tough girl vibes. It’s not an accident. Living in our neighborhood in the “bad old days” you really did have to carry yourself like that. Walk with purpose. Look at people like you’re not someone to be messed with so they better move on to the next potential victim. You just didn’t want to look like someone’s best candidate for a successful mugging. If you got jumped, you go jumped (they loved to hide behind those big piles of garbage bags that would accumulate into small mountains on narrow side streets and then lunge out at you), but it wouldn’t be for a lack of putting out a “back the eff off” attitude.
Marvelous! Such a good eye!
Very kind. Thanks.
Red and Purple……I so enjoy all of your photos. Wonderful people populate your gallery!
Merci!!
Thank you!!
Great photos. Another horrible beard.
Thanks!
Just noticed the man wearing the beret has a Walkman!
Just like every photo of new York. ?
Love Throwback Thursday and Harmon’s work.
I am glad!! Thanks.
Oh wonderful! I just saw the Diane Arbus exhibit at the Park Avenue Armory and many of these are in the same league. The elderly man leaning against the sidewalk structure with the Suit advertisement in the background is amazing as is the one of two elderly ladies taken from the back.
Keep them coming!
Thank you!! that makes me feel so good. I love Arbus’s work.