In the In Times Past column, David W. Dunlap explores New York Times history through artifacts housed in the Museum at The Times.
As New York’s premier chronicler of fashion, the photographer Bill Cunningham (1929-2016) roamed the city. But home base was the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street, where some of his most interesting subjects were bound to appear.
“He became as much a part of the scenery as Tiffany & Company,” Jacob Bernstein wrote in Mr. Cunningham’s obituary in The New York Times, where Mr. Cunningham’s work most frequently appeared. (Tiffany’s flagship store is on the southeast corner of that intersection.) “His camera clicked constantly as he spotted fashions and moved with gazelle-like speed to record his subjects at just the right angle.”
It was perfectly fitting that Mayor Bill de Blasio renamed the intersection Bill Cunningham Corner for one week in 2016, soon after Mr. Cunningham’s death.
When the temporary Bill Cunningham Corner street sign was taken down, Mr. de Blasio’s wife, Chirlane McCray, gave it to John Kurdewan, a staff artist at The Times. For 16 years, Mr. Kurdewan collaborated closely with Mr. Cunningham, laying out the densely illustrated On the Street and Evening Hours columns.
Mr. Kurdewan lent the street sign in 2018 to the New-York Historical Society (now New York Historical) for its exhibition “Celebrating Bill Cunningham.” Later, he displayed it at his desk in The Times’s headquarters in Midtown Manhattan. Four years ago, Mr. Kurdewan lent the sign indefinitely to the Museum at The Times.
New York Historical announced last month that it had acquired Mr. Cunningham’s archive: photographs, negatives, slides, contact sheets, prints, correspondence and ephemera. But you’ll still find Bill Cunningham Corner at The Times.
David W. Dunlap, a retired Times reporter and columnist, is the curator of the Museum at The Times, which houses Times artifacts and historical documents.
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