Margie and Helen Levitt

For my visit today with Margie, I showed her my book of Helen Levitt’s photos of New York City, most made between 1937 and 1943, while Margie was aged 11-17, growing up in the Bronx. The book I have is small format (Thames & Hudson), but Margie put the book in her lap and fell into the photos like Alice through the looking glass. 

“It’s all so familiar,” she chuckled. “I feel like I was just there last week.” She looked up at me in confusion, “But that was, wait. Is it? I think that was nearly a hundred years ago.” We sat in silence together as she tried to put her pieces together. “These pictures are more familiar to me than the block I live on right now.”

When she came to the one in the blip, she broke into a story, piecing it together slowly, with long pauses, as if it were a jigsaw.

“Look, the one sitting on that wooden crate has no wedding ring.” Pause. 

“The two women standing above her are acting like they’re friendly, but she shouldn’t trust them. They ask questions like they care about her, but they’re really pumping her for information they can use for gossip. The one with the flowery dress is just like my mother.” Another long pause.

“The one with the newspaper isn’t listening to them. She’s reading to find out if there’s a chance her boyfriend won’t be coming back, and she can’t be bothered with them.” Margie strokes the image of that woman tenderly with a finger, as if to comfort her. 

“But you see that nice baby carriage beside the woman with no ring? The baby’s father is married to someone else, but he has a good job, and he’ll take care of her and the baby till the depression comes, and then he’ll disappear. She doesn’t know that yet.”

Margie looked up at me, a bit disoriented as if coming out of a dream. “Did I have a husband?”

I said his name, and she rocked back against the couch, reassured. “Oh yeah,” she laughed. “Him.” 

It was nearly 5 pm, a gloomy day darkening; the crows were heading south to roost for the night. I reached for my rain jacket and camera bag, and Margie grabbed my arm. 

“Don’t go. Are you hungry? My mother has left food in the fridge. We can share it.”